
Class F . ^70 
Book_JA_2 



6A. 



CopiglTt"N? . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



- , ' '/•2-B. 



A CRITICAL HISTORY 



OF THE LATE 



AMERICAN WAR 





/ 


/ BY 

MAHAN. 




WITH AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER 






BY 




LIEUT. 


-GENERAL M. W. 


SMITH 




A. S. BARNES & CO., 

NEW YORK, CHICAGO, AND NEW ORLEANS. 



1877. 






Copyright, 1877. h A. S. Barnes & Co. 



United Service Club, Pall Mall, 
2Zth November, 1876. 

My dear Sirs, — 

According to Dr. Mahan's wish I have read over 
the portion of the proofs of his work which you have 
furnished me with. 

It seems to me that his book will prove both interesting- 
and instructive to those who wish to trace out the causes 
which have led to the success or failure of campaigns, and 
how battles have been lost and won. 

Although the Doctor is not a military man, he seems to 
have studied carefully the science of strategy as It has 
been developed at different periods, and applies his know- 
ledge in indicating where established principles have been 
deviated from. 

He compares, plainly and practically, what he conceives 
might have been done in accordance with such principles, 
with what was actually done ; the results in the latter case 
having now become matters of history. 

The author appears to have been familiar with the 
ground and scenes he describes so graphically, and 
to have been also tully furnished with all details relating 
to the strength, positions, etc., of the forces engaged. 



IV INJRODUCTORY LETTER. 

As to his comments upon and criticism of the conduct 
and capabilities of those who occupied prominent positions 
during the years of the last American War, I am not 
prepared to offer any opinion. Whether the readers of 
the present work agree with all the views of the author 
or not, its perusal may lead them to think out the matter 
for themselves, and to consider at least one phase of 
military combinations on a large scale; and in these 
critical and uncertain times this may prove a beneficial 
exercise of the intellect, with reference to both military 
men and civilians. 

Yours faithfully, 

M. W. SMITH. 

Lieut. -General. 



PREFACE. 



Science, like Its divine Author, Is " no respecter of per- 
sons." This Is equally true of Impartial criticism, and 
especially so when such criticism pertains to the deeds 
and character of men of world notoriety, — men who con- 
sent to assume the conduct of enterprises and interests 
upon the Issues of which the destiny of nations depends. 
In assuming such responsibilities, such men Invite, and 
even challenge, such criticism, and will receive it from 
every "wise and understanding people." In the prepara- 
tion of the following work, it has been a fixed aim of the 
author, not only to furnish needful information to his 
countrymen, but to exemplify the ideal represented by the 
words impartial historic criticism. He lays no claim to 
infallibility in the statement of facts, or in his deductions 
from the same ; and will gladly confess, and promptly 
correct, any errors of any kind into which partial or im- 
partial criticism may prove him to have fallen. In his 
criticism of the deeds and character of our Generals, of 
their campaigns and the conduct of the war, he claims to 
have known no man as a member of this or that political 
party, but to have contemplated and presented all in 
common from one exclusive standpoint, the military. If 
any of my countrymen regard any military commander as 
faultless, or void of merit, because he belongs to this or 
that political party, this history was not written for them, 
but for American citizens — citizens who would know that 
they are Americans who have occupied high places of 
trust and power, and under whose conduct oceans of 
American blood and treasure have been poured out. 
Criticism, when honest especially, is an important disci- 
pline of thought. Historic criticism not only furnishes 



VI PREFACE. 

the means of such discipline, but enables even those who 
may differ from an author in his statements and deductions 
better to understand the subject treated of than were 
otherwise possible. All my countrymen who would under- 
stand this war as really conducted, will, it is believed, read 
this treatise with interest and profit. Nor was the work 
prepared for Americans alone, but for all friends of truth, 
of every clime, into whose hands this treatise may fall — 
friends of truth who take an interest in what concerns this 
great nation, and who would understand events which 
have for all future time shaped its destiny. With these 
suggestions, the work before us is commended to the 
consideration of my countrymen especially. 

THE AUTHOR. 

Oct. 2 yd, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

Introduction ----- = -i 

I. The Bull Run Campaign - - - - - 19 

II. Administration of General G. B. McClellan in the 

Department of Washington - - - - 35 

III. The Command of General Fremont in the Western 

Department - - . - ■ . - 42 

IV. General McClellan as Commander-in-Chief - - 59 

V. The Spring Campaign of the Army of the Potomac - 76 

VI. General Halleck's Measures and Campaign in Missouri 113 

VII. General Plan of the Union and Confederate Authori- 
ties FOR the Conduct of the War - - - 118 

viiL The Campaign in Kentucky, and Events which followed 126 

IX. General Halleck at Pittsburg Landing and at Corinth 139 

X. General Halleck appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 

Armies of the United States - - - - i44 

XI. General Pope and the Army of Virginia - - - 146 

xn. General Lee's Invasion of Maryland - - - i79 

xiiL The Army of the Potomac under General Burnside - 209 

XIV. Movements in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi - 216 

XV. Expeditions on the Seaboard and Ocean - - - 223 

XVL My Visit to Washington in the Month of January 1863 231 

xvii. Winter Campaign of General Rosecrans - - - 244 

XVIII. The Siege of Vicksburg and Port Hudson - - 248 

XIX. General Hooker in Command of the Army of the 

Potomac -------- 256 

XX. General Lee a Second Time on Free Soil.— Gettysburg - 279 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

XXI. The Chattanooga Campaign - - - - - 308 

XXII. Minor Campaigns during this War - - - - 334 

XXIII. Our Naval Expeditions around the Southern Coasts - 340 

XXIV. Operations of the Army of the Potomac prior to the 

Appointment of General Grant as Commander-in-Chief 343 

XXV. Appointment of General Ulysses Grant as Lieutenant- 
General and Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of 
THE United States - - - - - -351 

xxvi. Campaign of the Army of the Potomac under General 

Grant .--.---- 360 

xxvii. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign ----- 390 

xxviii. Operations West of the Mississippi - - - - 406 

XXIX. Results of the Great Campaigns of 1864; Plans for the 

Future of the Union and Confederate Commanders 408 

XXX. General Price's Last Invasion of Missouri - - 316 

XXXI. The Campaign of General Hood in Tennessee - - 422 

XXXII. Sherman's March through Georgia - - - - 431 

xxxiii. Sherman s March from Savannah, Georgia, to Goldboro', 
North Carolina ; the Surrender of Lee and John- 
ston ; and the Close of the War - - - 438 



INTRODUCTION. 



I PURPOSE, from a standpoint hitherto unattempted, to 
write out a History of the War of the Rebellion. In, the 
multitudinous works now before the public, all that is 
needful has been said in regard to the causes which led to 
that memorable scene of " terror, tears, and blood," and 
to matters of detail in respect to our battles and campaigns, 
and to our unexampled national expenditure. My plan 
pertains, not at all to the causes and details of facts as they 
actually occurred, but to the conduct of this war. In this 
war the nation lost more than half a million of precious 
lives, accumulated upon its hands hardly less than a mil-, 
lion of its maimed and pensioned soldiers, expended many 
billions of treasures, and has loaded itself down with a 
present debt of upwards of two thousand millions of 
dollars. What the nation needs to be informed about is, 
not how this war was, but how it should have been, con- 
ducted, and whether such an appalling expenditure of 
time, life, limb, and treasure was needed in bringing the 
conflict to a successful termination. One fact is undeni- 
able, that another such war — a war as protracted and as 
wasteful of life and treasure — as this would ruin the nation. 
It is hardly to be expected that our national patriotism, or 
prudence, would endure such another draft upon time, 
blood, and treasure, and a doubling up of the debt under 
which we are now 'groaning. Yet, am.id the possibilities 
of the future, it would imply infinite presumption to 
affirm, or calculate upon, the Impossibility of another such 
a national catastrophe. If the war was wisely, and es- 
pecially most wisely, conducted, the nation needs, as her 
guides in the future, to understand the facts and the 
reasons for the same. If, from its beginning to its close, 

I 



2 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

it was badly conducted, as badly especially as can be 
conceived, this fact also should be known, with a full 
disclosure of the reasons thereof — that, as a nation, we may 
become wise and prudent through the knowledge and 
appreciation of past errors. 

We need, also, to understand clearly the conduct of this 
war, as the immutable condition of-knowing and appreciat- 
ing the character and merits of the men whom we have 
elected, or may elect, to rule over us, and the wisdom, or 
unwisdom, which has induced the nation to elect these 
men to the high places which they occupy. 

No free people can become " a wise and understanding 
people," and as moral as they are wise, unless by their 
votes they shall fill our chairs of state and represent- 
ative halls with statesmen, — statesmen "with Atlantean 
shoulders fit to bear the weight of mightiest monarchies," 
— statesmen, too, whose integrity and trustworthiness' are 
as visible as their greatness. None but diminutive bodies 
can revolve around a small central orb. As long as this 
nation shall fill our chairs of state with small specimens 
of human nature, minds characterised by ig-norance of 
national affairs, by greediness for filthy lucre, and in- 
difference to official corruption, — statesmen fit to sustain 
the weight of the mighty interests of this great Republic, 
statesmen whose integrity and trustworthiness shall be as 
manifest as their great talents and wisdom, will be invisible 
in our Cabinets and halls of legfislation. Had I a voice 
which could command the attention of the nation, that 
voice should break "trumpet tongued " upon the ear of 
every individual who is under the weight of the responsi- 
bility of the elective franchise ; charging him, as he regards 
the best interests of his country, if he would save our 
Government from misrule and corruption, and prevent 
general demoralization, to shake off, at once and for ever, 
the shackles of party, to step out from the circles of party 
rings, and enter into a solemn covenant with his con- 
science and his God never again to cast a vote for any 
man to fill any important office, — any man whose high 
talents, wisdom, integrity, and trustworthiness are not 
" known and read of all men." When manifest wisdom 
and trustworthiness shall become the sine qua nou con- 



INTRODUCTION. 



ditions of commandin."- the votes of the people of this 
nation, then shall "wisdom and integrity be the stability 
of our times," and this great Confederacy shall be God's 
pillar of fire in the forefront of all nations. To do some- 
thing- to ensure this "consummation so devoutly to be 
wished " has been the prime motive which has induced 
the preparation of this history. 



WHAT I PROPOSE TO R.KNDER DEMONSTRABLY EVIDENT IN 
THESE FUTURE PAGES. 

Having- made the science of war a subject of ch-icful 
study from my youth up, having critically read the history 
of the great campaigns of past ages, and done so for 
the specific purpose of a clear understanding and com- 
prehension of the principles on which they were con- 
ducted, and the wisdom and unwisdom of successful and 
unsuccessful commanders; having most carefully studied 
the conduct of this war from its commencement to its 
close ; having as carefully considered the relative strength 
and resources of the two parties in the conflict, and the 
comparative advantages and disadvantages of each for 
attack and defence ; and having contrasted the duration of 
this war with others in which the cases were at all similar, 
— I have from the beginning maintained, and will now 
proceed to render undeniably evident to every candid 
reader of these pages, the following propositions : that 
this war ought not have been of a single year's continu- 
ance after our armies were orsfanised ; that it oueht not 
to have cost this nation a hundred thousand lives, or a 
thousand millions of dollars ; that within any eight months 
of the continuance of the war, after the middle of October 
1 86 1, any Commanderin-Chief of ordinary ability and well 
iriStructed in military science, would have brought that 
conflict to a final termination ; that had General Grant been 
such a commander, he would have brought the conflict to 
a practical termination during the interval which occurred 
after he received his commission as Commander-in-Chief 
and the opening of his spring campaigns. I am well 
aware that these are bold and will be to many presumpt- 
uous propositions ; I am equally well aware that in these 



4 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

propositions T distinctly and correctly represent the de- 
liberate judgment of the best thinkers in the country, 
thinkers civil and military, to whom my views have been 
presented, together with the united opinions of the best 
military authorities in Europe. The conduct and con- 
tinuance of this war, and the oceans of blood and treasure 
poured out in carrying it through, have no parallel in the 
history of the world, and are matters of wonder and as- 
tonishment to Christendom. We shall have real ground 
for national self-respect, and shall command the highest 
respect of the civilised world, when, and only when, we 
shall evince our wisdom, our candour, and integrity by a 
revealed comprehension and appreciation of the real facts 
of the case. All I ask of my countrymen is a candid 
hearing of my facts and arguments. If, after such a 
hearing, my proofs shall not be found " perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing," I freely consent to suffer any amount of 
national reprobacy which my worst enemies can devise. 

I would here remark that the main portions of the 
criticisms which will be found on these pages were, during 
the progress of the war, expressed verbally to my own 
pupils, and to leading minds around me ; and in communi- 
cations addressed to such individuals as Secretary Chase, 
and Messrs. Sumner, Chandler, etc., and members of the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War. In along commu- 
nication addressed to Secretary Chase, near the close of 
the year 1862, after giving quite an extended criticism on 
the conduct of the war, I made the statement that " if our 
military authorities had made it their supreme object to 
devise and carry out the worst system presented in history, 
or known to the science of war, they could not, in my 
honest judgment, have succeeded better than they had 
done." In his reply, after commending my criticisms, 
and requesting me to continue the correspondence, saying 
that my " suggestions would be very instructive to him, 
and might be beneficial to the nation," the Secretary 
added: — "The opinion which you have expressed about 
the conduct of the war thus far is an exact expression of 
apprehensions which have frequently suggested themselves 
to my own mind." It was impossible for him to conceive, 
he added, " of a war conducted upon worse principles 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

than this had been." In a note received from Mr. Sumner 
about the same time, this paragraph is found : — " I have 
from the beginning- been profoundly impressed with your 
views. An administration more quick and positive than 
ours would have adopted them early, and the war would 
have been ended long since." "I fully endorse all your 
views," said Senator Chandler, in a similar note, "and 
have done all I possibly could to induce the Administra- 
tion to adopt them." 

I would further state, in this connexion, that an 
epitome of all my criticisms on the conduct of the war up 
to January 1863 is contained in two long communications 
read to President Lincoln in the early part of that month, 
and read in the presence of Senators Wade and Wilson, 
and other leading members of Congress. The substance 
of these communications was at first verbally presented 
to the President, in the presence of Senators Wade and 
Wilson, and was then, at his special request, committed tc 
writing. After the reading of the papers, it was unani- 
mously agreed that they should be submitted to some 
military man especially qualified to judge of their cha- 
racter; and General McDowell, with unanimous approval, 
was selected. The papers, it should be borne in mind, 
contained a special criticism of the previous conduct of 
the war, and a detailed plan for the conduct of future 
campaigns. After a full hearing of the documents, and 
a careful discussion of their essential features. General 
McDowell certified in writing that " the plan presented 
was the best that he had heard suggested." "With this 
plan adopted," he remarked to me, "we can finish up the 
campaign here in Virginia during the present winter." 
In one of my calls upon Mr. Sumner, at his own rooms, I 
found there the celebrated historian, Bancroft. After our 
mutual introduction, Mr. Sumner remarked to his friend 
that he was in the presence of an " individual who had 
studied the science of war from his youth, and who had 
presented certain papers on the conduct of the present war 
which have made a profound impression on all to whom 
they have been read. These papers, also," Mr. Sumner 
added, " contain a detailed plan for the conduct of our 
future campaigns. As a Historian can be relied on to 
/ 



6 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

keep a secret, I sugg-est that Dr. M. present to you the 
plan referred to." When I had done so, Mr. Bancroft 
promptly replied in these words, " Adopt that plan, and I 
am ready to write out a history of this war. Such has 
been its conduct thus far, that I have felt I could not 
endure the pain of writing out its history," He then 
expressed an earnest desire that the papers designated 
should be given to the public. 

After I left Washington, one of our senators went 
down to the army of the Potomac, and laid the plan 
under consideration before General Burnside and his corps 
commanders. Every one of these commanders earnestly 
advocated the adoption of the plan. General Burnside 
fully endorsed the "wisdom of the measure, but remarked 
that he had a plan of bis own which he desired to test, 
before adopting the new one. He tried his own, failed, 
was superseded, and then expressed to that senator his 
deep regret that he had not followed the advice of his 
Generals. In regard to the criticisms contained in those 
communications, no individual in W^ashington, then, nor 
has any individual to whom they have since been pre- 
sented suggested a doubt of the strict correctness of 
those criticisms ; while the best authorities, military and 
civil, all agree that had that plan been adopted the war 
would have been brought to a final close within the space 
of eight months from January ist, 1863. What that plan 
was, and how and why its adoption was prevented after 
the accomplishment of the event was rendered apparently 
certain, will be disclosed hereafter. The above facts and 
statements will evince, I judge, that I have reasons for the 
assurance of which I am possessed of the correctness of 
my criticisms on the conduct of this war, and that the 
public have reasons equally valid for giving a candid hear- 
ing to my presentations. 

FACTS OF A GENERAL NATURE WHICH CHARACTERISED 
THE CONDUCr OF THIS WAR. 

As preparatory to a full appreciation of particular 
criticisms, I would direct very special attention to certain 
facts ot a general nature, facts which characterised the 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

conduct of this war from its commencement to its close. 
A careful consideration of these facts will evince the strict 
correctness of my estimate of the matter, namely, that in 
badness of conduct this war has hardly a parallel in the 
history of the world. Consider, in the first place, — 

A fundamental fact stated by President Lincoln. 

In the papers read before President Lincoln, this state- 
ment was made, that we had had at least from six to 
eight hundred thousand men called into the field, and 
yet these immense forces had been so distributed over 
the whole country that our central armies were always 
too weak to do any effective service. When that sentence 
was read, the President interposed for a time, and made 
the following statements : — " I confess to you, gentlemen, 
that there has been connected with the conduct of this 
war one fact which I have never been able to compre- 
hend. It is true that we have had all these vast forces 
in the field, and yet in no battle that has thus far been 
fought have there been 70,000 men engaged on our 
side. When I visited Antietam, after the battle there, 
I found between 92,000 and 93,000 effective men under 
the immediate command of General McClellan ; yet, take 
all the forces that were under fire in that battle, and add to 
them all that had previously fought at South Mountain, 
and the aggregate does not amount to 70,000 men. So 
it has been from the commencement of the war to the 
present time. Such facts as these, gentlemen, I admit 
to be beyond my comprehension." " But one inference 
can be drawn from such facts," I replied. " Your 
Commanders-in-Chief, President Lincoln, evince a pal- 
pable ignorance of their business. The world knows of 
no parallel to the facts you have just stated." What was 
true of the conduct of this war from the beginning 
up to January 1863, characterised, as we shall see here- 
after, its conduct to the end. Wiih the amount of available 
forces under their command, our Commanders-in-Chief 
never ought to have lost an important battle, and never 
ought to have fought one without an amount of force 
which outnumbered the Confederate as three to two, or 



8 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

two to one. In all the important battles actually fought, 
on the other hand, the forces were so evenly balanced as 
to render victory on either side a matter of doubt, and 
victory and defeat so bloody as to appall the nation and 
the world. 

Relative strength of the hostile forces during this war. 

In judging correctly of the wisdom, or unwisdom, of 
military commanders in conducting their campaigns, we 
need to take distinctly into account the character and 
number of the forces under their command, as compared 
with the character and amount of the armies under hostile 
commanders. During the progress of this war, Napoleon 
sent the Adjutant-General of France to this country to 
learn, and report on his return, the actual condition of the 
Union army. That General was required to doff entirely 
his uniform, and to appear wholly as a private gentleman, 
revealing to nobody in this country his official character. 
In this state it was wiselyjudged that he be would be in the 
best circumstances possible to ascertain the facts as they 
really were. Having obtained the desired information, he 
made this report to the home Government, that " the Union 
army was the best constituted and worst commanded 
army in the world." In that report, he correctly expressed 
the known judgment of the military authorities of Europe. 
Of the correctness of that report, as far as the soldiery of 
both the Union and Confederate armies are concerned, 
there can be no doubt whatever. Braver, stronger, more 
self-sacrificing men, or men more capable of enduring the 
hardships of war, the world never saw. But what shall 
we think of the second item in that report? Was, or was 
not, ours the worst commanded army in the world ? No 
other judgment seems admissible if we adjudicate the case 
in the light of the comparative amount of the forces which 
constituted the Union and Confederate armies. Accord- 
ing to official records, more than 2,600,000 men entered 
the Union armies during the progress of this war. After 
the middle of October 1861 our forces were never less 
than 800,000 and often exceeded 1,000,000 men, upwards 
of the number last designated being mustered out of ser- 
vice at the close of the war. According to the most 



INTRODUCTION, 9 

reliable Confederate authorities, there never entered their 
armies much, if any, over 600,000 men, while their effec- 
tive forces actually, at any one time, in the field never 
exceded 200,000. I give the figures pertaining to the 
Confederate armies as furnished by General S. Cooper, 
ex- Adjutant- General of the Confederacy, and endorsed as 
correct by Dr. J. Jones, Secretary of the Historical Society. 
These statements are also confirmed by the testimony of 
the ex- Vice- President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. 
Stevens, who says: — "The Confederates, all told in like' 
manner, could not have much, if any, exceeded 600,000." 
If we consider the fact that the number of the white popu- 
lation of the eleven States which first entered into the 
Rebellion was, according to the census, less than 6,000,000 
or less than 3,000,000 of males, the strict verity of the above 
statements becomes self-evident. Out of such a population 
not more than 600,000 men capable of bearing arms could 
have been drawn. Nor could such a population as con- 
stituted these States, especially in their circumstances, 
have equipped and kept in the field an effective force of 
more than 200,000 men. It must also be borne in mind 
that it was only in the early part of the war that men or 
provisions of any account were furnished by Tennessee, 
or Arkansas, and none from Western Virginia. In less 
than two years after the commencement of the war, also, 
soldiers from the States west of the Mississippi refused 
utterly to cross that river. Hence all the forces opposed to 
us east of said river, and where all the real issues of the 
war were located, had to be drawn from seven States whose 
white male population was less than 2,500,000. Such are 
the real facts of the case. The actual forces of the 
Confederacy during this war cannot have been under- 
estimated by Messrs. Cooper and Stevens. Undeniably, 
the Union armies outnumbered those of the Confederacy, 
in all cases, as two, commonly as three, and during the 
entire period in which General Grant was our Commander- 
in-Chief, as four to one ; yet, in almost all important 
battles the forces engaged were nearly equal, the issues 
of quite as many battles and campaigns were against us 
as in our favour, quite half a million of lives were sacrificed, 
and oceans of treasure, and between four and five years of 



lO THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

time were expended, in subduing a rebellion where such 
overwhelming odds were on our side. 

The relative positio7i of the Confederate aitd Union States. 

The validity of such a deduction becomes still more 
palpable when we consider the relative position of the 
Union and Confederate States, and consequently of the 
hostile forces of the same. Leaving Western Virginia, 
Tennessee, and Arkansas out of the account, the nine 
remaining Confederate States lay in a comparatively nar- 
row strip, between the Potomac and Rio Grand, with the 
Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico on the south, and the 
Union States on the north; the Gulf and the Ocean being 
wholly under our control. No country could have been 
more fully exposed to perfectly crushing blows, both on 
its water and land sides, than were these States during the 
progress of this war. On the water side, any amount of 
force could, at any time, have been conveyed to any point 
we chose, while the Union and Confederate armies always 
lay in the near vicinity of one another. Whenever any 
one of our central armies desired to find the enemy, it had 
to march but a very few miles to attain the object desired. 
No commanders of armies ever enjoyed such advantages 
as did ours to encircle, crush, and capture forces so far 
inferior to their own. At any period after the middle of 
October 1861, our Commander-in-Chief, leaving the army 
of the Potomac intact, and from the forces actually in the 
field could have collected an army of 80,000 or ico,ooo 
men, have conveyed them by water to Hilton Head, from 
thence by an inland movement have captured Charlestown 
and Willmington, have crushed the rebellion in the Caro- 
linas, and by moving up on General Lee's rear, and 
assaulting him, in combination with the army of the 
Potomac, have destroyed or captured the Confederate 
army in Virginia, and thus wiped out the rebellion in the 
States east of Savannah river. Or the same end could 
have been better accomplished by first moving the body 
! :^ferred to round by Fortress Monroe, landing them where, 
at the command of General Grant, General Butler landed 
20,000 men, — that is, at Burmuda Hundred ; and from 
thence seizing all General Lee's communications south of 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

James river. In that case, between this body of men and 
the Potomac army, the entire army of General Lee would 
have been crushed or captured in a very few weeks. A 
very few weeks more would then have sufficed, through a 
general combination of all our armies, to wipe out the 
entire rebellion in all the States west of the Mississippi, 
and to ensure its speedy collapse everywhere. No man 
with any acquaintance with military affairs, or of common 
information, will for a moment doubt the validity of these 
statements. 

Important facts connected with the army of the Potomac. 

During the entire progress of this war, the objects of 
central regard on the part of the Union and Confederate 
States were the army of the Potomac, under its successive 
commanders, on the one hand, and that of Virginia, under 
General Lee, on the other. The exclusive mission of the 
former army was to strike a deadly blow at the heart of 
the rebellion by the capture of Richmond, and the dis- 
persion, the annihilation, or capture of the army of General 
Lee. All parties were well aware that the accomplishment 
of this one mission would necessarily involve the speedy 
death of the Confederacy. And what was this army of 
Virginia? In the character of its soldiery, and in its 
management upon the field, it has seldom, if ever, been 
surpassed. In numbers, however, it never reached 1 20,000, 
and generally fell quite below 100,000 men. When it en- 
countered the army of the Potomac under General Grant, it 
never had more than 70,000 men in all, being outnumbered 
by the actual forces opposed to it on the field of conflict, 
as quite three to one. The single mission of General Lee, 
with the small band of brave men under his command, was 
to perpetuate and establish the Confederacy by defending 
the Confederate capital and the State of Virginia against 
the overwhelming masses of men as brave as his own, 
masses arrayed against him. If any one, after a careful 
comparison of the relative numbers of these two armies, 
and after considering the forces which our Commanders- 
in-Chief might, at any time, have concentrated and com- 
bined for the conquest of Virginia, will take a map and 
contemplate the field on which these two armies operated, 



12 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

he will perceive at once that no army could have been 
more exposed to crushing blows from forces which were, 
or might have been, combined against it, than was that of 
General Lee, and that no city can be more easily approached 
by superior hostile forces for purposes of assault or siege 
than was Richmond during that entire war; facts, also, 
which will be rendered demonstrably evident in the future 
pages of this history. What was actually accomplished 
on this field by this Potomac army? In its various cam- 
paigns, despite all its efforts, and that from no fault of its 
brave soldiery, the soil of the Union States was three times 
invaded by the little army of Virginia ; in a large majority 
of the great battles fought, victory perched upon its 
standards, more than 200,000 Union soldiers were slaugh- 
tered, and the grand army of the Potomac never ap- 
proached within seeing distance of the city which it was 
its supreme mission to reach and capture — never got in 
sight of that city, I say, until it was abandoned by the 
Confederates, and taken possession of by a small band of 
coloured troops. We may search all history for a parallel 
to such facts, and search in vain. 

Pti'iods of active service in our campaigns during this war. 

The latitude and climate of the Confederate States per- 
mitted and required active service on the part of our armies 
during the entire year. Such service was also required 
by the examples of the great military commanders of all 
Christendom. Suwarrow, for example, marched the Rus- 
sian army over the Alps in midwinter. The campaigns of 
Eylau and Austerlitz were carried on, the one amid the 
deep snows and terrible frosts of a Poland, and the other 
amid those of a Bohemian winter. The campaign of the 
Allies in France, the campaign which resulted in the cap- 
ture of Paris, and the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, was 
wholly a winter campaign, and that in one of the most 
marshy provinces in Europe. The Germans, in their late 
French campaigns, never suspended operations for a single 
day on account of snow or frost. This has been true in 
all ages in regard to great armies under great military 
commanders. 

Our great armies, however, uniformly rested during 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

the winter months and in midwinter. After the first 
Bull Run campaign, " all was quiet on the Potomac," and 
everywhere else, until the next spring, when the Confede- 
rates retreated from Manassas, leaving behind them that 
fearful array of "Quaker guns" which during the prior 
fall and winter months had so fearfully frightened our 
"young Napoleon," the great Commander-in-Chief of all 
our armies. After the victory at Gettysburg, the capture 
of Vicksburg, and the lesser advantages gained at Lookout 
Mountains and Knoxville, our immense forces lay for ten 
months in a state of perfect idleness, either within, or directly 
upon, the borders of the Confederacy, and that in accordance 
with the decision of a Council of War, a council held by our 
Com.mander-in-Chief, with his leading generals. Such was 
the general character of the conduct of this war during its 
continuance. Here we have one of the main reasons why 
the war " dragged its slow length along " through so many 
years. If our spring or fall campaigns were successful, 
the practical suspension of hostilities during the summer 
and winter months enabled the Confederacy to repair all 
damages, and to adjust itself fully to the new state which 
affairs had assumed, — we losing more men, in the meantime, 
through disease resulting from idleness and dissipation, 
that would have been lost through active service. Had 
our Commanders-in-Chief followed the example of success- 
ful warfare in other nations, the Confederacy would have 
had " no rest day nor night," winter or summer, after the 
full opening of hostilities to their final close. 

Our unimproved victories. 

The real test of generalship is, not the mere gaining 
of victories, but a subsequent improvement of the advan- 
tages thereby secured. In the war under consideration, 
it seems to have been the deliberate plan of our Generals 
to give their opponents full opportunity, after a defeat, to 
repair their losses, and readjust their armies to the new 
exigencies which had arisen. At Antietam, for example, 
our commander claimed a great and signal victory on 
the part of the army under his command, while not two- 
thirds of his forces had taken any part at all in the battle, 
— the entire corps of General Porter, for example, not 



14 THE AMI'IRICAN REBELLION. 

having fired a gun. Yet, with 30,000 fresh troops, 
and 60,000 more who were as ready to renew the 
fight as they had been to commence it the day before, 
our commander stood still, and saw General Lee pass his 
defeated army, without loss, over the Potomac. When 
absolutely commanded by the supreme authority at 
Washington to pass his army over the river in pursuit of- 
the retreating foe, our "young Napoleon " absolutely re- 
fused obedience, under the plea that his army was in want 
of 10,000 pairs of shoes, and thus lay still for upwards of 
forty days. After the great victory at Gettysburg, General 
Lee retreated in one direction and our army moved off 
in another. When excessive floods delayed the retreating 
army, on its arrival at the Potomac, until ours came up, 
the latter then stood still, and did nothing whatever, 
until General Lee had manufactured a bridge and passed 
his army safely over. A signal victory on the 4th 
July required that our army should rest until the opening 
of the ensuing spring campaign. Such was the uniform 
policy of our commanders during this war. After the 
fall of Vicksburg, I wrote a communication to the A^ew 
Vor/c Times, — a communication not published, of course- 
In this paper I remarked that any one at all acquainted 
with military affairs and the state of our country would 
perceive at once that the advantages to be derived from 
the victory at Gettysburg and the opening of the 
Mississippi, depended wholly upon the use which should 
be promptly made of the army under General Grant. 
If that army should be at once combined with that of 
the Potomac or Tennessee for a finally decisive move- 
ment upon Generals Lee or Johnston, the war might be 
brought to a speedy termination. I would venture, how- 
ever, to give a prediction in respect to what would be 
done — Nothing decisive will now be attempted until 
the opening of the spring campaign next year ; unim- 
portant advantages will be magnified Into signal victories; 
while the Republican papers will continually flood the 
country with reports that "the Confederacy is on its last 
legs," and is about to sufier a final collapse. During this 
wide interval, the Confederacy will repair the damages 
it has received, reorganise its armies, perfect its defences. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

and adjust itself to existing circumstances. In the spring-, 
consequently, our campaigns will open as if no hostilities 
had before existed. These were the exact statements 
made in that communication ; the reader will readily 
call to mind how absolutely those predictions accorded 
With the events which followed. When I came to com- 
prehend the principles on which that war was conducted 
on our part, nothing almost gave me so much pain and 
apprehension as a signal victory gained by one of our 
armies in some particular locality, — a victory of an in- 
decisive character in respect to main issues. The reason 
was that that victory would so completely satisfy our 
Commander-in-Chief, whoever he happened to be, that 
active operations would everywhere be suspended for 
some six or ten months. This, as we shall see hereafter, 
is no caricature of facts as they actually occurred through- 
out this war. 

The time 0/ the continuance of this war, as compared with others 
in Other countries. 

In the history of the world, when armies have encoun- 
tered each other in the open field, as was true of our war, 
hostilities have been of short continuance. In what a 
limited period, for example, did England convey her 
armies half round the globe, and subdue the Sepoy rebel- 
lion among 150,000,000 of people in India; a rebellion in 
which the English forces had to encounter a soldiery which 
had been trained and armed by England herself The cam- 
paign of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon marched his army 
across the entire, empires of Erance and Germany, fought 
several battles, captured Vienna, struck off northwards into 
Bohemia, and in midwinter ended the war by the famous 
battle which gave name to the campaign under considera- 
tion, was begun and ended in the space of ninety days. In 
ninety days after Austria joined Russia and Prussia against 
Napoleon in Saxony, the campaign, which involved many 
and bloody battles, was finished by the victory of the 
Allies at Leipsic. The winter campaign of the Allies in 
France, the campaign which resulted in the capture of 
Paris and the banishment of Buonaparte to Elba, was but 
of ninety days' continuance. In ninety days after the Allies 



1 6 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

declared war against Napoleon on his return from Elba, 
Wellington and Blucher, all being taken by surprise, col- 
lected their armies, moved them to Belgium, quartered 
them there for several weeks before Buonaparte opened 
the campaign, fought four world-renowned battles, 
marched their armies from their last bloody field to Paris, 
captured that city, and sent the Emperor of France a 
prisoner to England. Wellington wa.s longer than this in 
finishing up his Peninsular campaigns, because France had 
possession of all the strongholds of Spain, and the armies 
opposed to him were generally twice or three times as 
numerous as his own. Yet, with all these odds against 
him, he never lost a battle; and in a wonderfully short time 
drove the central army of France over the Pyrenees, and 
with his own invaded the French territory. Let us now 
compare a case which occurred in still more modern times. 
On the 15th of July, 1870, France declared war against 
Prussia. On the 29th of January following, an armistice 
was signed at Versailles, among the terms of which was 
the surrender of all the fortifications about Paris, together 
with all the military forces in the city. On the first day of 
March in the same year, a treaty of peace was ratified by the 
National Assembly of France. By this treaty she ceded to 
Germany all Alsace and one-fifth of Lorraine, and agreed 
to pay to that Government ;!^ 1,000, 000, 000 on account 
of the expenses of the war. Louring this brief period, the 
German armies had captured upwards of 700,000 prisoners, 
France losing upwards of 250,000 men in battle and by 
disease, together with the leading fortified places of her 
empire, such as Paris, Sedan, Metz, and Strasburg. In 
short, in less than seven months the Germans collected 
their armies, moved them into France, crushed the military 
power of that great nation, consisting of 40,000,000 of 
people, captured and destroyed not less than 1,000,000 of 
its soldiery, took its capital and leading strongholds, and 
compelled it to pay the expenses of the war. It took 
our Commanders-in-Chief with effective forces far more 
numerous than those of Germany, between four and five 
years to prostrate the military power of less than 6,000,000 
of people ; a people whjo could never keep in the field an 
effective force of over 200,000 men, and whose territories 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

were incomparably more accessible to our land and sea 
forces than was France to the armies of Germany or of 
the Allies. Can any one, in view of the palpable facts 
before us, doubt that within any ninety days after the 
middle of October 1861, it was clearly within the power 
of any one of our successive Commanders-in-Chief, had he 
understood his business, to have made such combinations 
of the forces under his command as to have secured the 
capture and the surrender or destruction of the army of 
Virginia ? " My life upon the issue," I often remarked to 
President Lincoln durinQf the interviews referred to, " if 
Richmond shall not be in our hands, and the army of 
General Lee captured or utterly dispers(^d, within three 
months from the present time, provided you will order the 
combinations proposed to be made." In my opinions upon 
the subje^ ' , such men as General McDowell, the corps 
commanders of the army of the Potomac, and leading" 
thinkers in Washington, perfectly agreed. The reason 
why our war was thus protracted beyond all recorded ex- 
amples is obvious. The Germans, for example, wherever 
the armies of France were collected, made that spot their 
centre, and made all their movements with fixed reference 
to one end — the encircling and capturing those forces. 
When a victory was gained, the retreating foe was relent- 
lessly pursued until all possible advantages were reaped 
from said victory. After hostilities were commenced, they 
were never intermitted on account of heat, rain, snow, or 
frost, until the end proposed was secured. In our war, on 
the other hand, the armies of the Confederacy were never 
made our centres of operation, and their capture, or utter 
dispersion, the object of our aims. We were perpetually 
em.ployed in assaulting strongholds, always approaching 
them on their strongest sides, leaving their communica- 
tions intact, in conquering and holding territory, opening 
and guarding water communications, and " plugging up 
the Southern ports," — always resting after our victories 
until the Confederacy had full opportunity to repair their 
losses. In short, our war on our part very much resembled 
a conflict between athletes, in which each aims exclusively 
to hit the other on his extremities, and in which the brave 
combatants rest twenty-four hours between each round. 

2 



1 8 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Without further preHminary statements we now advance 
to a direct consideration of the actual conduct of this war ; 
simply indicating the opinion that few facts in history 
will surprise the nation and the world more than will a 
disclosure, now for the first time made, of the real causes 
which actually brought this war to its sudden, unexpected, 
and bloodless termination. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN, 

CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER. RESULTS FOLLOWING. 

On Friday, April 12th, 1 861, at twenty minutes past four in 
the morning-, and by special command of the supreme 
authorities of the Confederacy, the bombardment of Fort 
Sumter, from the forts and batteries in and about Charles- 
town Harbour, commenced. The fortress was at the time 
garrisoned by the brave Robert Anderson, with such stern 
patriots for under officers as Captain Doubleday, General 
A. Snyder, and seventy men as brave and patriotic as 
their commanders. At nine o'clock Sabbath morning, 
April 15th, the little band were taken from the fort by 
the United States steamer Isabel ; one man having been 
killed, and three wounded, by a premature explosion after 
the bombardment had ceased. The eventful drama of 
Sumter was immediately followed, on the one side, by 
the addition of four States to the Confederacy, making in 
all eleven States which entered into the Rebellion ; the 
transfer of the capital to Richmond; and a second levy 
upon the seceded States for troops, a levy which increased 
the army of the said States to an equality in numbers to 
those which were called into the field by the Federal autho- 
rities. On the occurrence of the same event, President 
Lincoln, on the other side, called upon the Union States 
for 75,000 volunteers for three months' service, and subse- 
quently for the enlistment of an indefinite number of volun- 
teers whose term of service was to extend during the war. 
As the result of these successive calls, the Union army 
amounted on the 4th July, 1861, as given in the report 



20 THE AMI':!\rCAX REBELLION". 

of the Secretary of War to Cong-ress met in special 
session, to 310,000 men. Deducting from these the three 
months' volunteers, whose time of service was about to 
expire, " there will," says the report referred to, " be still 
an available force of volunteers amounting- to 180,000; 
which, added to the regular army, will constitute a total 
force of 230,000 officers and men." At the period of the 
Bull Run campaign, our army in the field consisted of 
an effective force of 310,000 men. Of these, as we shall 
also see, upwards of 150,000 were located in and about 
Washington, and within the State of Virginia, under the 
immediate command of General Scott, our Commander- 
in-Chief, and all fully available, and admirably located for 
an immediate and successful movement upon the Confede- 
rate army and capital. Having furnished all these vast 
forces for the specific purpose of putting down the Re- 
bellion, the public sentiment of the Union States called for 
prompt and decisive action. It was, also, intuitively mani- 
fest to all, that if the Confederate army in the great State 
of Virginia was annihilated, and the Rebellion was here fully 
subdued, and the capital of the Confederacy was occupied 
by the Union armies, there would be a speedy collapse of 
the Rebellion everywhere. Hence the cry which from all 
parts of the Union States broke continuously upon the ears 
of our military authorities at Washington — " On to Rich- 
mond ! " It was under the pressure of this united sentiment 
of the Union States that the Bull Run" campaign occurred. 
Before proceeding to our criticisms of this campaign, it 
may be important to notice certain 

Interesting and important events in Missouri. 

Among the most interesting and important events of a 
military character which preceded the campaign under 
consideration were those which occurred in iMissouri 
under the direction of the immortal Captain (afterwards 
General) Lyon, aided in all his measures by the most 
efficient services of Colonel F. P. Blair, who assumed 
command of the First Missouri Volunteer Regiment, 
April 25th. The manner in which, by order of the War 
Department at Washington, Captain Lyon and Captain 
Stokes on the night of April 25th removed about 30,000 



THE BULL RUN CA^rPATGN. 3T 

stands of arms and other important war materials from 
the arsenal at St. Louis, first to Alton, and then to Spring-- 
field, Illinois, must command the, admiration of all who 
read the account of these transactions. This event was, on 
the loth May ensuing, followed by another of still greater 
importance, the capture of Camp Jackson by Captain 
Lyon at the head of 6,000 volunteers. This camp had 
been formed in the outskirts of St Louis, under the direc- 
tion of the Adjutant-General of the State, and was oc- 
cupied undeniably in. the interests of the Confederacy by 
a full brigade of armed men. Finding themselves sur- 
rounded by a force which could not be resisted, the whole 
brigade surrendered. The following note from Victor's 
" History of the Rebellion " will fully evince the importance 
of this transaction : — 

Among the articles enumerated as found in the camp were 
three 32-pounders, a large quantity of bombs and balls, several 
pieces of artillery in boxes, twelve hundred rifles of a late model, 
six brass field-pieces, six brass mortars (6-inch), one lo-inch iron 
mortar, three 6-inch iron cannon, several chests of muskets, five 
boxes of canister shot, ninety-six lo-inch, three hundred 6-inch 
shells, twenty-five kegs of powder, a large number of musket stocks 
and barrels, between twenty and thirty boxes, and a considerable 
quantity of camp tools. On the steamer J. C. Swan, seized, by 
order of Captain Lyon, for carrying contraband of war, was found 
the register, showing that most of these arms and equipments had 
come up the river from the Baton Rouge arsenal. 

On May 31st, General Harney, who had, during a 
command of a few weeks, fully evinced his utter incapacity 
to meet the exigencies of the then existing crisis, was 
superseded, and General Lyon substituted in his place as 
Commandant of the Western Department. An interview 
was held between the latter and C. B. Jackson, Governor, 
and Ex-Governor Sterling Price, in St. Louis, Colonel 
Blair and Major Conant being present as advisers of General 
Lyon. The parties failing utterly to agree, the Confede- 
rate representatives retired. Governor Jackson immediately 
calling the people of Missouri to arms, to " Rise, and drive 
out ignominiously the invaders who had dared to dese- 
crate the soil which their labours had made fruitful, and 
which is consecrated by their homes." The place of ren- 



22 THE AMERICAN REBELLIOX. 

dezvous of the Confederate volunteers was Boonevillo. 
No sooner was General Lyon in full command, than he was 
after Jackson and Price. Putting his little army on board 
steamers and transports, he sailed June 13th for Boone- 
ville, having on the day previous issued a most stirring 
proclamation to the people of Missouri. On the morning 
of the 15th he landed at Jefferson C ty, and installed 
Col. Boersistein as Military Governor. On the next day, 
reinforcements having arrived from St. Louis, he sailed 
for Booneville, and on the 17th defeated the Confederates 
there, and drove what remained of them undispersed 
towards the southern part of the State, Pressing forward, 
and acting in concert with Colonel Siegel, who moved 
out from Rolla, his forces, having performed most orilliant 
feats of arms, were concentrated, July loth, at Springfield ; 
while Jackson and Price fled from the State. The visible 
results of prompt and decisive action in putting down the 
Rebellion in Missouri, intensified the desire of the nation 
for the adoption of similar measures in Virginia. If a few 
thousand of hastily collected and imperfectly drilled 
troops could do such things in the former State, what 
ought not to be expected from 150,000 men, perfectly 
disciplined troops, in the latter? Hence the cry, "On 
to Richmond!" became too loud and strong to be alto- 
gether disregarded. 

Events in the State of Virginia. — The invasion. 

Before the movement which we are soon to consider, 
however, was attempted, several events of more or less 
importance had occurred in the State of Virginia and in 
connexion with the arm.y of the Potomac. In the depart- 
ment at Washington, an early movement of no little impor- 
tance was effected — the open invasion of " the sacred soil 
of Virginia." This occurred on the 23rd June. Over the 
Long Bridge at Washington, and over the Chain Bridge 
at Georgetown, 10,000 men were conducted, those over the 
former under General Mansfield, and those over the latter 
under General McDowell, and safely established on the 
soil referred to. In the meantime, Colonel Ellsworth, with 
his Fire Zouaves, being conveyed thither by steam, took 
possession of Alexandria. The assassination of the brave 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 23 

Colonel at this place caused deep grief to the whole nation. 
All the above results were accomplished without loss on 
our part, Colonel Ellsworth excepted, while some 30cr 
prisoners, mostly civilians, were captured in an attempt 
to escape on a railroad train. 

In the department of General Butler an affair ill-con- 
ceived, and very badly executed, occurred at Big Bethel, 
an affair in which a body of our troops, consisting of several 
thousand men, commanded by General Pierce, was defeated, 
with the loss of about loo on our side; one being killed 
and seven wounded on the part of the Confederates. A 
transaction of similar importance occurred in the depart- 
ment of General McDowell. We cite from Mr. Greeley's 
** History of the American Conflict" : — 

Late on Monday, June 17th, General Robert C. Schenck, under 
orders from General McDowell, left camp near Alexandria, with 
700 of Colonel McCook's ist Ohio, on a railroad train, and pro- 
ceeded slowly up the track towards Leesburg, detaching and 
stationing two companies each at Fall's Church and at two road- 
crossings as he proceeded. He was nearing Vienna, thirteen 
miles from Alexandria, with the four remaining companies, num- 
bering 275 men, utterly unsuspicious of danger, when, on emerging 
from a cut and turning a curve, eighty rods from the village, his 
train was raked by a masked battery of two guns, hastily planted 
by Colonel Gregg, who had been for two or three days scouting 
along our front, with about 8co rebels, mainly South Carolinians, 
and who, starting that morning from Dranesville, had been tearing 
up the track at Vienna, and had started to return to Dranesville, 
when they heard the whistle of General Schenck's locomotive. 
Several rounds of grape were fired point blank into the midst of 
the Ohio boys, who speedily sprang from the cars, and formed 
under the protection of a clumiD of trees on the side of the track. 
The engineer, who was backing the train, and, of course, in the 
rear of it, instantly detached his locomotive, and started at his best 
speed for Alexandria, leaving the cars to be burnt by the rebels, 
and the dead and wounded to be brought off in blankets by their 
surviving comrades. The rebels, deceived by the cool and un- 
daunted bearing of our force, did not venture to advance, for fear 
of falling into a trap in their turn ; so that our loss in men was but 
twenty, including one captain. The rebels, of course, lost none. 
Each party retreated immediately — the rebels to Fairfax Court 
House. 

Events in Pennsylvania and Nortiiern Virginia. 

Events of still greater interest were transpiring in 



24 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Southern Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia, where 
General Robert Patterson held command. On the 7th 
June he advanced with quite 20,000 men from Cham- 
bersburg to llagerstown, General Wallace on his right 
taking possession of Cumberland and Romney. On the 
occurrence of these events, General Joseph E. Johnston, in 
command of the Confederates, burned the bridge at Point 
of Rocks, destroyed the superb railway bridge over the 
Potomac, made destruction of the armoury and shops at the 
Ferry, and retreated from Harper's Ferry to Winchester. 
While General Patterson remained at Hagerstown, the 
Potomac, at his command, was crossed and recrossed at 
Williamsport by General Thomas ; the Confederates, in the 
meantime, returning to the river, completing the work of 
destruction at Harper's Ferry, thoroughly dismantling the 
Chesapeake Canal and the several railroads in that region, 
and made a conscription of Union men as well as Con- 
federates to fill their ranks. Finally, on the 2nd July, 
General Patterson recrossed the Potomac at Falling 
Waters, encountering a slight resistance from General 
Jackson. On the 7th orders were given, but not executed, 
for an advance on Winchester, whither General Johnston 
had again retreated. On the 15th, the energetic com- 
mander of the Union forces, now increased to upwards 
of 30,000 men, moved through Martinsburg to Bunker 
Hill, nine miles from Winchester, having received specific 
orders from General Scott to make *' a forward movement 
as rapidly as possible." The part which this important 
army took in the movement upon Manassas will be pre- 
sented hereafter. 

Events in Western Virginia. 

In Western Virginia, in the department of General 
McClellan, events of the very highest importance were 
transpiring just at this time. By plans most wisely devised, 
and vigorously executed, the entire Confederate forces in 
this department, those in Kanawha Valley excepted, were 
either dispersed, or captured. The Confederate camps 
most strongly fortified at Rich Mountain under Col. 
Pegram, and at Laurel Hill under General Garnett, were 
captured, with most of their artillery and camp equipage. 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 25 

After lying" in the woods for two days In a starving con- 
dition, Colonel Pegram, July 17th, with 600 men under his 
command, surrendered at discretion. At a tinal stand 
made by General Garnett in his retreat, he was himself 
killed, and his whole force dispersed and disorganized, 
a portion of them escaping to join General Jackson at 
Monterey. Of the result of these victories, General 
McClellan thus speaks in his despatch to Washington : — 

General Garnett and his forces have been routed, and his baggage 
and one gun taken. His army are completely demoralized. General 
Garnett was killed while attempting to rally his forces at Carricks- 
ford, near St. George. 

We have completely annihilated the enemy in Western 
Virginia. 

Our loss is about thirteen killed, and not more than forty 
wounded ; while the enemy's loss is not far from two hundred killed; 
and the number of prisoners we have taken will amount to at least 
one thousand. We have captured seven of the enemy's guns in 
all. 



ADVANCE ON MANASSAS, OR THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 

All these events occurred prior to the advance on 
Manassas, and present to our consideration an army little 
less than 35,000 men at perfect liberty to be employed 
in a grand advance upon the State and capital of Old 
Virginia. The advance that was made we are now fully 
prepared to consider. The events above detailed abso- 
lutely evince one essential fact — the perfect reliability of 
the soldiery of the entire forces under the direction of our 
Commander-in-Chief for any service which the interests of 
the nation might require. In Missouri, in the Peninsula, 
before Washington, in Northern and Western Virginia, our 
newly-disciplined troops evinced all the courage, steadi- 
ness, and energy of disciplined veterans. The promptitude 
with which those Ohio volunteers re-formed after their 
surprise at Vienna is an honour to the State and nation. 
In no instance was there a reverse on account of the bad 
quality of the men engaged. Let us now advance to a 
direct consideration of the Bull Run campaign ; our aim 
being, not merely to present what was, but what ought to 



26 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

have been, done under the circumstances. As a means to 
this end, let us consider, in the first place, 

THE COMPARATIVE AMOUNT AND RELATIONS OF THE UNION 
AND CONFEDERATE FORCES AVAILABLE FOR OFFENCE AND 
DEFENCE ON THE SACRED SOIL OF VIRGINIA. 

The campaign under consideration was, professedly, 
but the opening scene of a great drama, the finale of which 
was to be the subversion of the Rebellion in Virginia, and 
the capture of its capital ; and in it that of the Confederacy. 
The nation did not demand or expect a battle, but a con- 
quest, which should be visibly decisive of the fate of the 
Confederacy. A view of the situation and comparative 
amount of the forces in the two armies immediately opposed 
to each other will enable us to form a correct judgment of 
the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the demand and 
expectation under consideration. The amount of effective 
forces under the direct supervision and control of our 
Commander-in-Chief, and fully available for the contem- 
plated movement, could not, as we have stated, have been 
less than 150,000 men. Those under General Butler 
amounted to 15,000 men, those under the immediate 
command of General McDowell to quite 75,000, and those 
under Generals Patterson and McClellan to upwards of 
30,000 each. 

According to the best Confederate authorities, the entire 
forces under the command of Generals Beauregard and 
Johnston amounted to less than 30,000 men. Mr. Stevens 
puts their united forces at 28,000 ; 20,000 under the former, 
and 8,000 under the latter. Johnston had under his com- 
mand, for example, but nine regiments, with a {^\^ hundred 
cavalryunder General (Stonewall) Jackson. No Confederate 
authority places the forces of General Beauregard above 
the sum designated. In all the rest of the State it is quite 
safe to affirm that there were not over 20,000 organised 
troops that could have been rendered available against the 
Union armies. Our armies, then, outnumbered those of 
the Confederacy as three to one. If we adopt the relations 
of two to one we shall be far within the circle of real facts ; 
and this last estimate is all that is asked, as the basis of 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 27 

our statements of what was undeniably practicable through 
a wase use of the forces under our Commander-in-Chief. 

Nor can we conceive of armies in better relations for 
offensive operations than were ours at the time. Equally 
unfavourable was the condition of the Confederate armies 
for successful defence. The latter armies were within a 
semicircle of forces, divided into four parts; by each of 
which, General Butler's excepted, they were outnumbered, 
and which could have been concentrated upon them with 
perfectly annihilating force. Let any one take a map and 
mark the location of the Confederate forces at Manassas 
and Winchester, at Yorktown, Richmond, and other parts 
of Virginia. Then let him notice the location of the armies 
under General Butler at Fortress Monroe, under General 
McDowell at Arlington, under General Patterson at Bunker 
Hill, and General McClellan in Western Virginia ; bearing 
in mind that all these forces were perfectly free for effective 
service. But one judgment can be passed in view of the 
facts before us, namely, that no armies could be In a worse 
condition for defence than were those of the Confederates, 
nor in a better condition for offensive operations with over- 
whelming masses than were these Union forces. Let us 
now consider 

What viight have been^ and ought to have been^ done tinder 
the circumstances. 

Let us suppose that 20,000 men had been detached 
from General McDowell and sent round to General Butler, 
the forces of the latter being thereby increased to 35,000 
men ; that when all things were in readiness the army of 
General Butler was moved to Burmuda Hundred, as it 
was in the campaign under General Grant; that those 
under General McClellan were by rapid marches moved to 
Stanton ; those under MrDowell having moved out in front 
of Manassas ; while Patterson had moved down the Shen- 
andoah and occupied a central position between the right 
of McDowell and the left of McClellan. The result of such 
dispositions, as every one at all acquainted with military 
affairs, or possessed of common understanding, cannot but 
perceive, would have been such as the following: — Rich- 
mond, being then unfortified, would have been captured by 



28 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

General Butler with little or no resistance ; his presence 
in that vicinity would have prevented any reinforcements 
being sent to Generals Beaureg-ard and Johnston ; while 
his occupancy of all communications south of James river 
would have rendered the retreat of the Confederate forces 
into North Carolina impossible. On the other hand, the 
Confederate generals at Manassas, finding themselves en- 
circled by forces more than three times as numerous as 
their own, and finding all hope of escape cut off. would 
have surrendered without a battle, or after too feeble a 
resistance to be called one. Thus the Rebellion would, in 
a few days, have been totally suppressed throughout the 
entire State of Virginia, and that with very little bloodshed 
on either side. These advantages being promptly followed 
up, the Carolinas, with all their seaports, would, in a few 
weeks more, have been in our hands, and the almost imme- 
diate collapse of the Confederacy everywhere else would 
have been fully assured. This we affirm, in the open pre- 
sence of the nation and world, and that with no fear of 
intelligent contradiction, that had the army of 310,000 
effective forces under the command of our Commander- 
in-Chief on the 4th July, 1 86 1, been promptly and wisely 
employed, the duration of the Rebellion would but a little 
have exceeded the period assigned to it by Mr. Seward, — to 
wit, " ninety days." We have suggested but one pian for 
the disposition and movement of our forces for the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion in Virginia. Other dispositions 
and movements equally felicitous will readily suggest them- 
selves to every reflecting mind. Who can doubt that the 
civilians were right in calling for an onward movement, 
and a decisive one, under the circumstances then existing ? 
Let us now consider 

What ivas done at this eventful crisis. 

The affair at Bull Run, as it actually occurred, can 
be told in few words. On the i6th July, General Irwin 
McDowell, under the direction of Lieutenant-General 
Scott, moved out from his cantonments south of the 
Potomac, and near Washington, and moved in the direc- 
tion of Manassas. For the service assigned nearly 35,000 
men were detailed. This column consisted of four divisions : 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 29 

the first under General Tyler, the second under General 
Hunter, the third under General Heintzelman, the fourth 
under Colonel Miles, — the fifth, under General Runyon, 
being left in the works south of the Potomac. On the 
1 8th a sharp conflict, mainly with artillery, occurred be- 
tween our advanced forces under General Tyler and a 
body of Confederate forces under General Longstreet, at 
Blackburn's Ford on Bull Run ; we losing eighty-three and 
the Confederates sixty-eight men. This reconnoissance In 
force revealed the fact that the Confederate army was in 
a position where they intended to give battle, a position 
along the wooded valley of Bull Run, about midway 
between Centerville and Manassas Junction. On Satur- 
day, General McDowell had brought up his forces, and 
made all preparation for battle on the next day. In the 
meantime, General Johnston, to be followed by his army, 
had arrived at Manassas, and, being the senior officer, 
had assumed the command of the Confederate forces, — 
following out, in full, the plan previously arranged by 
General Beauregard. General McDowell had arranged to 
have the battle commence at six o'clock the next morning. 
It was two or three hours later than this, however, before 
the flanking divisions reached the position at which fighting 
in earnest was to commence. In the early part of the day, 
all things seemed propitious for a decisive victory of the 
Union forces, the Confederates being driven, by 3 p.m., at 
least one mile and a half. At this juncture, the battalions 
of General Johnston, under Colonels Elzey and Early, 
appeared upon the Union right, and outflanked the 
same. Several of our regiments first recoiled under the 
unexpected fire poured upon them, and then broke in 
confusion and fled from the field. The result was a 
general panic of the Union forces, and a confused retreat 
in the direction of Washington. The Confederates, with 
their fresh reinforcements, and a splendid cavalry of 1,500 
men, pursued our forces but a short distance, having dis- 
covered our first division drawn up in good order on the 
slope west of Centerville, and calmly, if not eagerly, await- 
ing their advance. Another and very important reason 
f«r such a short pursuit was afterwards assigned by the 
Confederate commander, — to wit, that they did not desire 



30 THE AMERICAN Rjl-jJELLION. 

to reveal to the Union generals the small forces available 
for pursuit. 

Immediate results of this battle. 

The direct results of this trag-ico-comic affair was the 
loss, on the part of the Confederates, according- to the 
report of General Beauregard, of 269 killed and 1,533 
wounded, with two or three hundred prisoners taken in the 
early part c^f the battle, and sent on to Washington, not 
reported. After stating that 1,460 wounded and other 
prisoners had been sent to Richmond, the report adds : — 
"The ordnance and supplies captured include some twenty- 
eight field pieces of the best character of arms" (our re- 
ports make the number 17-22), "with over one hundred 
rounds of ammunition for each gun, thirty-seven caissons, 
six forges, four battery waggons, sixty-four artillery horses, 
completely equipped, 500,000 rounds of small-arms ammu- 
nition, 4,500 sets of accoutrements, over 500 muskets, 
some nine regimental and garrison flags, with a large 
number of pistols, knapsacks, swords, canteens, blankets, 
a large store of axes and intrenching tools, waggons, am- 
bulances, horses, camp and garrison equipage, hospital 
stores, and some subsistence." 

General McDowell states our losses as 481 killed and 
1,011 wounded, giving no account of how many wounded 
and others were captured from us by the enemy. The 
greatest loss of all was the prestige of an expected victory, 
to be followed by a triumphant advance upon Richmond. 

The peculiar character of the battle accounted for. 

All histories of this war agree in respect to the fact 
that this battle was " without form or order," and with no 
unity of action among the various divisions, as far as the 
Union forces were concerned. General McDowell himself, 
during the day, did not seem to know what the various 
portions of his army were doing, or to have any control- 
ling influence in directing their movements. Each divi- 
sion, brigade, and even regiment seemed to act by and 
for itself, and not as a part of an unified whole. During 
the progress of the battle, on various parts of the field, 
single regiments would be sent out, and after firing a cer- 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 3 1 

tain number of rounds, would be retired, and others sent 
forward to act in their places. Such want of system has 
been recorded as a fault of the General in command. On 
the other hand, during- our visit to Washington in January 
1863, we found this to be the general opinion of him on 
the part of those best qualified to judge, President Lincoln 
included — that we had no better read General in our 
army, no better judge of the character of a proposed cam- 
paign, and few, if any, better qualified to plan one, or to 
manage a corps anywhere. During the sickness of General 
McClellan, after he became Commander-in-Chief, and when 
the President was greatly perplexed as to what should 
be done in the pressing crisis, General McDowell, • 
with General Franklin, was sent for, for special counsel 
and advice. What were the difficulties which encircled 
him, as commander of the Potomac army ? We state them 
as we received them personally from General McDowell 
himself. When he took command of this army, he 
made immediate arrangements to manoeuvre them, and 
train them to act as harmonious parts of a systematised 
whole. All such measures were absolutely prohibited by 
General Scott. In urging their importance. General 
McDowell was charged with desiring to make a show. 
Hence it was that the regiments which constituted his 
brigades, his brigades which constituted divisions, and 
the divisions which constituted his army, never had the 
least discipline in concerted action, the army being, in 
reality, constituted of independent parts, with a nominal 
commander, who could by no possibility command in any 
proper sense his own forces. The battle had to be fought 
by regiments at a time, these being the only compact and 
systematized bodies in the army. Nor was it possible for 
any General to have given real system to such a body of 
men on a battlefield, or to be really cognizant of what was 
going on during its continuance. 

In addition to all this. General Scott absolutely refused 
to furnish General McDowell an adequate cavalry force, 
though there was an abundance of such troops in Wash- 
ington. This part of the army was obstinately kept on 
the north side of the Potomac, the most of those who 
accompanied the advance on Manassas having been got 



32 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

over by stealth. Hence it was that all reconnoissances 
had to be made by infantry, with no adequate amount of 
cavalry to improve an advantage or to cover a retreat. 
Such are the real facts of the case before us. Under com- 
mand, General McDowell took command of this army. 
Under positive command, he fought an important battle 
for which he had been absolutely prohibited giving his 
army the preparation necessary to render success a pro- 
bability ; the cavalry necessary to render a compaign what 
it should be being also arbitrarily withheld from him. 

THE PART WHICH GENERAL PATTERSON DID, OR RATHER 
DID NOT, ACT IN THIS TRAGIC COMEDY. 

In the campaign under consideration, Beauregard 
counted on the co-operation of Johnston, and McDowell 
on that of Patterson. How Johnston met the expectations 
reposed in him we have already seen. The reliance of 
McDowell, on the other hand, turned out to have been a 
*' broken reed." General Patterson had received positive 
orders from General Scott to attack and beat Johnston if 
he (Patterson) was in sufficient force to do it, and if not, 
to so employ his army as to prevent his Confederate anta- 
gonist joining Beauregard. Deeming himself too weak 
for offensive operations, nothing remained for our com- 
mander, then at Bunker Hill, but to keep Johnston where 
he was, at Winchester. As a means to this end. General 
Sanford, on Patterson's left, had made all dispositions to 
occupy the only roads on which Johnston could move to 
Manassas, so as to be there in time to be of service to his 
colleague. Sanford' s movement was to have been made 
at four o'clock in the morning. A little after twelve 
o'clock the same night he received a detailed order 
from Patterson, to move promptly, not in the direction 
intended, but at right angles to the same ; to make all 
dispositions on the way, by which our whole army at 
Bunker Hill should move, not towards Winchester, but 
make a safe retreat to Charlestown, near Harper's Ferry. 
So indignant were the men at what they were compelled 
to do, that when Patterson appeared before them the next 
day he was received with a loud and universal groan. 



THE BULL RUN CAMPAIGN. 33 

The reason for this movement was that a rumour reached 
the ears of our veteran commander that he was to be 
attacked by Johnston reinforced by 20,000 men. Thus, 
while the Confederate General moved on to Manassas, the 
Union commander, terror-stricken by a rumour, fled 
precipitately to Charlestown, and from thence brought his 
disappointed and indignant forces in safety to Harper's 
Ferry, where he was superseded by General Banks. Thus 
ended this farcical campaign. 

What should have been do7te in the circumstances. 

This campaign smote the North with horror, electrified 
the Confederacy, and was a presage of the final results of 
the war in the judgment of Europe. But one thing was 
required of our supreme military authorities in the crisis 
— a prompt disposition of all the available Union forces 
in all parts of the country for a most decisive movement 
upon the Confederate armies in Virginia, and for the 
capture of the capital of the Confederacy itself. The 
action of the army of Manassas after its victcry, their 
retirement especially before a single division in regular 
array at Centerville, clearly revealed the utter impotency 
of that army, if assailed by the united forces under the 
command of our military authorities. Had the three 
months' volunteers retired, sufficient forces remained to 
accomplish what the crisis demanded. Nor would these 
volunteers have retired, as they were to do, under the 
disgrace of ignominious defeat, had they been assured 
that by another month's service they could crown them- 
selves and their country with deathless honour. 

What was done under the circumstances. 

Instead of this. " the great and exceedingly bitter 
cry" of our Commander-in-Chief everywhere broke upon 
the ear of the nation, that *' the civilians had compelled 
him to fight a battle before he was prepared for it." As 
a consequence, popular clamour was turned away from its 
proper object, military imbecility, and vented itself upon 
the civilians. From that time onward, civilians were to 
have nothing to say about the conduct of the war. All 
was to be left to the uncriticised direction of the Generals,. 

3 



34 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

whether they might chance to be wise commanders or 
fools. To this cry the press succumbed ; and hence from 
this time onward the conduct of the war was without 
impartial criticism, even what the European military 
authorities thought of it not being permitted to meet the 
national eye. This was one of our national calamities 
during the progress of this war. None but partizan 
criticisms had place in the columns of the national press. 
In respect to the conduct of war, as well as other subjects, 
the unbiased judgment of the people is generally correct, 
and should have free and full expression through the 
press. Otherwise, stupidity is about as likely to lead 
armies as wisdom. The civilians being silenced, however, 
another and still worse result followed, namely, with few 
and slight exceptions, the total inactivity of our great 
armies from the end of July 1 86 1 to the i st March of the 
year following; when, with similar exceptions, the con- 
duct of the war, as we shall see, was everywhere as bad 
as it could have been. 



CHA.PTER II. 

ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN 
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON. 

The campaign of Bull Run convinced the Administration 
of the utter incapacity of General Scott to act as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States in 
the then existing crisis Yet, in deference to his former 
services in the cause of his country, he was not formally 
superseded until the last of October of that year. In 
addition to the facts already stated, he was informed, by 
telegram from Patterson, of the latter's retreat to Charles- 
town. On the 20th, the day previous to the battle of 
Bull Run, he was informed, by another telegram from 
Patterson, that Johnston had actually retired from 
Winchester to reinforce Beauregard at Manassas. Yet 
no order was sent to recall McDowell from a battle in 
which defeat, under the circumstances, was almost certain. 
General Scott was, de/ado, superseded by the appoint- 
ment of General George B. McClellan to the supreme 
command of the department of Washington, then created 
as preparatory to such appointment. At this time, he 
found under his immediate command in his department, 
aside from the depletion of the forces previously there, 
by desertion, defeat, and the mustering out of the three 
months' volunteers, — he found under his immediate com- 
mand, we say, 50,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, 650 artil- 
lery, with 32 field guns. This force was, leaving out 
of view the army he had left behind him in Western 
Virginia, that under General Banks in the Shenandoah 
valley, and under General Butler at Fortress Monroe, 
more than sufficient to defend the national capital 



36 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

against any force which the Confederates could bring" 
forward to capture the place. It was, indeed, as we shall 
see, more than twice as large as he proposed to leave 
for the protection and defence of the same place when 
he took the army of the Potomac down to the Peninsula. 
He was, however, left but a few weeks in this condition. 
On the 15th October he reported, as in and about Wash- 
ington, at Baltimore, and on the Potomac, within the 
State of Maryland, an army of 152,051 men, 8,404 of 
these being absent. With such a force under his com- 
mand, he repeatedly assured the nation, not that he in- 
tended to make any aggressive movements at all, but 
that he could hold the capital against any force which 
the Confederates could bring against him. The Con- 
federate General, Johnston, in the meanwhile, was lying in 
a state of perfect and fearless security at Manassas, with 
a force under his command amounting to less than 50,000 
men. It may be well, as preparatory to future references, 
to give here the number of the forces present for duty at 
Manassas and in Northern Virginia under the command of 
General Johnston. As officially reported to the War De- 
partment in Richmond, the number present October 31st, 
1 86 1, was 44,131 ; December 31st it was 62,112 ; February 
28th, 1862, it was 44,617. 



NATIONAL SENTIMENT IN REGARD TO GENERAL McCLELLAN 
WHEN HE WAS APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 

On the I St November, 1861, General McClellan as- 
sumed the command of the armies of the United States. 
" General McClellan," as Mr. Swinton has well said, 
"brought to his high trust proofs of talent which, though 
not sufficient to show him a proper captain of a great 
army, were yet enough to inspire the best hopes of him. 
He had served with distinction in Mexico, had studied war 
in Europe, was in the flower of his youth, and, above all, 
had just finished a campaign that, by its success amidst 
elsewhere general failure, seemed to furnish at once the 
presage and prophecy of victory." Yet, as has been equally 
well said by Mr. Caville J. Victor, " A greater trust never 
was confided to a younger man ; nor does history show a 



ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN. 37 

greater trust reposed in one who had done comparatively 
so little to prove his fitness for the trust." One fact is 
undeniable, however, to wit, that no other young- or old man 
was ever advanced to successive high commands with more 
universal approval of the press and people. All parties ap- 
proved and applauded his appointment. Nobody enquired 
to what party he had belonged, or questioned the wisdom 
of the authorities which advanced him to his high office. 
In anticipation of what he was to do, he received the 
cognomen of our "Young Napoleon." For his prompt 
organization of the army of the Potomac he was justly 
applauded. His long inaction in all departments under his 
command was seconded and applauded under the assurance 
•' that he had a plan the development of which would, with 
absolute certainty, astonish and electrify the nation, and 
ensure the sudden collapse of the Confederacy." His fickle- 
ness in changing his plans ; the transfer of the main portion 
of his great army from the front of the Confederate 
army, which had retreated from Manassas, to the Penin- 
sula; his stopping four weeks with 130,000 men in front 
of 10,000 at Yorktown, when any commander of common 
understanding would, as we shall see, by a flank move- 
ment, have captured the place in four days : all these by 
the Republican press were presented to the country as 
masterly acts of strategy. Even his disastrous retreat from 
Chickahominy to Harrison's Landing was represented by 
the same class of papers as a prudential change of base, 
from a bad to a good position. Never did the Republican 
papers cease at all to uphold and eulogize him until his' 
utter want of real capacity as a General became too 
manifest to be denied, and too calamitous to the nation to 
be further apologised for or endured. 

At a very early period of his command the author of 
this treatise lost all confidence in our " Young Napoleon." 
One of the first facts which induced this distrust was an 
extract from a criticism of his published after his return 
from Europe, a criticism on the Crimean campaign. The 
extract referred to went the round of the papers, and was 
presented as a proof to the nation that we had at the 
head of our armies a tactician of the very highest order. 
In the extract, a fundamental error is professedly disclosed 



^S THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

in the conduct of that campaign on the part of the Allies. 
They besieged Sebastopol but upon one side, and that on 
the side which left the Russians perfectly free to send into 
the city any munitions of war, reinforcements, and pro- 
visions they pleased. Instead of this, as our strategist 
':ontended, they should have opened the siege on the 
other side, cutting off all communications between the 
empire and city, and thus ensuring the early surrender of 
the place. Now the prominent characteristic of a great 
tactician is that, in the presence of great armies, he will 
readily detect the plans of their respective commanders, 
comprehend their excellences and defects, and suggest 
important improvements in said plans. The defect, as I 
at once saw, in this criticism, was a total misapprehension 
of the real plan of the Allies, representing its fundamental 
excellences as essential defects, and presenting in the 
place of the one that was adopted the very worst that 
could have been adopted. The real and specific plan of 
the Allies, and the very best that could have been adopted, 
was not to capture the city and fortress before them a 
day earlier than they did. They desired to leave all com- 
munications between the place besieged and the Empire 
which was to defend it, perfectly open. The military 
authorities which developed the plan of the campaign on 
the part of the Allies understood perfectly that in the 
harbour of Sebastopol was the fleet of Russia, the idol of 
its Emperor; that the city with its harbour was the eye of 
the Empire looking towards the south and east ; and that 
if besieged in a certain manner, such was the character of 
Nicholas that he would exhaust the army and treasury of 
his Empire in its defence. In carrying on the war on this 
plan, the Allies could convey their armies, munitions, and 
provisions, by water and rail, directly to the places where 
they were needed, and that at the least expense possible ; 
while Russia would be necessitated to march her armies, 
convey all her munitions, materials, and provisions, wholly 
by land, from the centre of that vast Empire, and over the 
worst roads in the world. The plan of the Allies, then, 
as avowed by the French Emperor, was, not to capture 
Sebastopol at all, but to besiege it in such a form as to 
exhaust the treasury and military resources of Russia in 



ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN. 39 

its defence, — one of the wisest plans known in the history 
of war, as the results fully demonstrated. In that war 
Russia lost upwards of 600,000 men, — almost its entire 
regular army ; while the loss of the Allies was but about 
150,000. In this war, also, the treasury of the Empire 
became so exhausted that its credit was gone ; while the 
expense of the Allies was so small as not to burden the 
nations which entered into the alliance. Russia, almost 
without an army or credit, was necessitated to sue for 
peace, and accept it on the terms which the Allies pro- 
posed. Had the plan proposed by our tactician been 
adopted, Sebastopol would indeed have been soon cap- 
tured, and the Allies have been necessitated to prosecute 
the war at a great distance in the interior, where the power 
of Russia would have been far greater than theirs. Two 
fundamental defects, as a consequence, became manifest 
to my mind in the criticism under consideration — an utter 
failure to comprehend the plan which he criticised, and 
the presentation, as an essential improvement of that 
which could not have been improved, of the very worst 
that could have been devised. In view of such facts, I at 
once located our Commander-in-Chief among fourth-rate 
tacticians. If I should suggest my honest judgment of 
General McClellan and his successor General Halleck, as 
leaders of great armies, I should say that they never 
evinced any capacity in planning campaigns but to 
blunder, and that they never blundered upon a plan that 
ought to have been adopted. Whether this impression 
is or is not correct will be rendered fully manifest in the 
sequel. 



FUNDAMENTAL DEFECTS IN GENERAL McCLELLAN, AS THE 
LEADER OF A GREAT ARMY. 

It may help the reader to comprehend more perfectly 
than otherwise the facts to be hereafter presented, if wfe 
stop here and consider some of the essential defects 
of our Commander-in-Chief, as the leader of great armies. 
One of the most prominent peculiarities of a great com- 
mander is an ability to determine, from facts which he can 
gather, the amount of forces in the army opposed to him. 



40 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

On such points such commanders seldom err. On a 
particular occasion, for example, Buonaparte saw a small 
body of men take a position in his front, and remarked to 
his staff that there was an army of 60,000 men advancing 
to that position. The facts turned out to be just as he 
stated. The manner in which that small body took posi- 
tion revealed to the discerning eye of the great Emperor 
the precise amount of the advancing army. Now one of the 
fixed peculiarities of General McClellan was an amazing 
overestimate of the number, discipline, and furnishment 
of the army opposed to him. In his official report, given 
March 8th, 1862, he puts the number of the Confederate 
forces at Manassas and in Northern Virginia at 115,500, 
when the entire number as revealed from official sources, 
as affirmed by all Confederate and by English officers 
visiting Confederate armies, and the avowed opinions ot 
the best informed generals in our army, — that number was 
less than 50,000. When he arrived at the Chlckahominy, 
he sent a message to the President saying that the army 
opposed to him was quite as numerous as his own, and would 
fight well. He always laboured under a similar delusion 
in regard to the discipline, equipment, and provisions ot 
the hostile forces. As his fixed maxim was never to fight 
a battle without the consciousness of overwhelming odds 
on his side, and as in the presence of an enemy his imagi- 
nation always presented the opposing force as greater and 
better disciplined and provided than his own, his great 
skill consisted in avoiding general and decisive engage- 
ments, and hence he never brought anything important 
to pass. 

Another essential defect in our ** Young Napoleon" is 
what may be called self-distrust — distrust of his own plans 
after they had been adopted and partially executed. We 
state this from a leading officer in the Potomac army, and 
one of the most ardent admirers of General McClellan. 
lie would adopt a plan, said this officer, as, of all others 
conceivable, the very best, and with great energy would 
enter upon its prosecution. At length, as difficulties ac- 
cumulated upon him, he would think of some other and now 
impracticable plan. In the light of the new suggestion the 
defects in the existing plan would become more and more 



ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN. 4 1 

palpable to his mind, until the sentiment of distrust would 
become so overpowering that he would be utterly unable 
to arrange or order any decisive movement. Such was his 
mental state, when he saw the difficulties before and around 
him, when he had lain for a time with his army on the 
Chickahominy. He here saw how much better it would 
have been to have moved his great army at Washington, 
in front of the enemy on the Rappahannock, and with his 
right wing reinforced, flanking them by a movement down 
the valley of the Shenandoah. Hence, he remained in 
palsied inaction until his disastrous retreat to Harrison's 
Landing. No nation can be more unfortunate than one 
whose armies are under such leaders as this. 

We mention but one other serious defect in General 
McClellan as the leader of a great army. We refer to 
his overestimate of the necessity of universal and absolute 
readiness and order, as the condition, sine qua non, of 
moving a great army. This characteristic of our General 
was thus presented to us by a distinguished United States 
senator. The fixed rule in the army is that each wheel 
of each army-waggon shall have an extra linch pin. If 
General McClellan should learn on the eve of a great 
advance that a single wheel of a single waggon lacked 
the required pin, he would stop his whole army for ten days, 
if that were necessary, to have the deficiency supplied. 
Hence it was that he was never ready to make an impor- 
tant movement. He could not obey an absolute order 
from the Commander-in-Chief to move his army across 
the Potomac, because he had just discovered that out of 
upwards of 90,000, some 10,000 of his men were not ade- 
quately shod. Hence it is that but for the absolute com- 
mand of the supreme authorities nobody can divine when 
our army would have been moved from before Washington. 
The above characteristics will throw light upon all our 
campaigns which were conducted under the lead of General 
McClellan. Before proceeding further in our criticisms 
of the administration of our youthful commander, we will 
now devote a short chapter to noticing some important 
events which were at this time transpiring in Missouri in 
the department of General Fremont. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT IN THE 
WESTERN DEPARTMENT. 

On the loth July, as we have seen, General Lyon ar- 
rived at Springfield, and formed a junction there with the 
forces of Colonel Siegel, who had advanced from Rolla. 
Here we left this brave little army before whom Governor 
Jackson and General Price, with their forces, had fled from 
the State of Missouri. On the gth of this month, General 
Fremont was appointed to the command of the Western 
District, which included Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and 
Kansas. Tarrying some time in the city of New York to 
obtain necessary arms, equipments, and munitions, he 
arrived at St. Louis on the 25th of the same month, and 
assumed the command of his department. As General 
Lyon was doing all that could be done, and that in the 
best manner, in and about Springfield, General Fremont 
did not interfere with the arrangements of his predecessor. 
In the meantime, the Confederates, largely reinforced, 
particularly in cavalry, re-entered and overran Southern 
Missouri, and confined General Lyon to Springfield, who 
was waiting for reinforcements. The general mustering 
out of the three months' men, however, prevented any 
being sent to his aid. Learning that the enemy was 
advancing upon him in two strong columns, one from 
Cassville on the south, and the other from Sarcassie on 
the west, he determined to advance upon the former and 
stronger body, and strike that before it had formed a 
junction with the latter. Leaving Springfield August ist, 
with 5,500 foot, 400 horse, and 18 guns, he at Dug 
Springs met and defeated on the next morning a detach- 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 43 

ment of the advancing force. General McCulloch, who 
commanded this force, now moved west, and formed a 
junction with the column which was moving up from 
Sarcassie, while General Lyon returned to Springfield. 
The Confederates now advanced with great caution, and on 
the 7th reached Wilson's Creek, ten miles south of Spring- 
field. At this point, our brave General knowing well that 
the opposing force outnumbered his as more than two 
to one, determined to surprise the Confederates now under 
the command of General McCulloch, and this by a night 
attack. He accordingly on the gth left Springfield with 
two columns ; the main one commanded by himself, and the 
less, 1,200 strong, with 6 guns, by Colonel Siegel. At 4 
a.m. August loth, the battle commenced by a front attack 
on the enemy's front by Lyon's forces, while the rear of 
McCulloch' 8 right was attacked by Siegel. Taken by 
surprise, the Confederates at first recoiled in disorder. 
Becoming at length aware of the smallness of the force 
assaulting them, they returned and fought with desperate 
courage. On the enemy's right, Siegel at first gained 
a great advantage, and with his guns made terrible 
havock among the men opposed to him. Being at length 
suddenly assailed by a large force which had been mis- 
taken for Unionists, his column was thrown into remediless 
confusion, and fled in disorder, five of his guns being 
taken. The entire weight of the Confederate columns now 
fell upon the devoted band under General Lyon. By the 
terrible fire of this band the enemy was, time and again, 
driven in confusion from the field, and driven but to return 
with greater force and determination. In the last onset, 
our brave commander, the idol of his army, and one of the 
most worthy of our nation's perpetual remembrance, fell, 
but with his army in possession of the field. 

Major Sturgis now led back the Union forces in good 
order to Springfield ; from whence, under the conduct 
of Colonel Siegel, a safe retreat, with a baggage train 
five miles in length, was effected to Rolla, and the south 
of Missouri was again in the hands of the Confederates. 
In this battle, which was fought by General Lyon contrary 
to his own judgment, he being over-persuaded by General 
Sweeny and others, the Union loss, as officially reported, 



t 

44 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

was 223 killed, 721 wounded, and 108 missing. General 
McCulloch reported the entire loss on the other side as 
265 killed and 800 wounded. The Unionists throughout 
the country lamented the death of General Lyon, as did 
the Confederates that of General Jackson, and for similar 
reasons. The former was, unquestionably, in all respects, 
one of the best Generals known in the Union army. His 
great merits are confessed even by the Confederates. 
" The death of General Lyon," says Pollard, in his 
** Southern History," " was a serious loss to the Federals 
in Missouri. He was an able and dangerous man — a man 
of the times, who appreciated the force of audacity and 
quick decision in a revolutionary war. To military educa- 
tion and talents he united a rare energy and promptitude. 
No doubts or scruples unsettled his mind." Mr. Pol- 
lard, we would add here, thus explains the reason why 
our army was totally unmolested in its retreat to Spring- 
field and from thence with its long train to Rolla: — " Shortly 
after the battle, the Confederate army returned to the 
frontier of Arkansas, Generals McCulloch and Price hav- 
ing failed to agree on the plan of a campaign in Missouri." 

EVENTS IN THE WESTERN DEPARTMENT, UNDER THE 
IMMEDIATE DIRECTION OF GENERAL FREMONT. 

On the 25th July, as we have seen, four days after 
the disaster at Bull Run, General Fremont arrived in St. 
Louis, and assumed command in the Western Department. 
Nothing can exceed the confusion and peril which every- 
where encircled him. On the South, Louisville, Cairo, 
Cape Girardeau, Ironton, and Springfield, were threat- 
ened by large Confederate forces ; while Lieutenant- 
Governor Reynolds was operating in Northern Missouri 
with an army approaching 5,000 in number, and the spirit 
of St. Louis was decidedly insurrectionary. From every 
direction the loudest calls for help reached him. In addition 
to the advance of McCulloch and Price upon Springfield, 
and the occupancy of North Missouri as stated, 20,000 men 
under General Pillow, for example, were advancing on 
Cairo, and General Hardee with 5,000 troops, 2,000 being 
excellently mounted and equipped cavalry, was advancing 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 45 

Upon Ironton. At Louisville and other assailable points, the 
Union forces were being confronted by superior hostile 
armies. Another difficulty which he had to contend with 
was the fact that the largest portion of the troops, which 
in great numbers arrived in St. Louis, were unarmed, and 
no means existed to arm them until arms and accoutre- 
ments should arrive from the east ; all exertions which 
any commander could employ being used to hasten this 
consummation. 

Under the circumstances, the first thing to be done 
was to render the most vital points which were about to be 
assailed, secure. To this end our commander accordingly 
addressed himself. Having received a letter from General 
Lyon which convinced him that there were no pressing 
necessities at Springfield, and having reinforced Ironton, 
and Cape Girardeau, he, in five days after his arrival, 
collected 3,800 men, and transported them to Cairo ; find- 
ing a force of only 1,200 men under General Prentiss at 
this place. The sudden appearance of this reinforcement 
induced General Pillow, who had landed at New Madrid, a 
few miles below the place, to make a hasty retreat. Thus 
this vital point was rendered permanently secure. On 
the 7th August he was back again at St. Louis, and 
took immediate measures, amid other pressing calls, to 
reinforce General Lyon ; sending orders to Colonel Steven- 
son to march with his regiment from Booneville, and 
Colonel Montgomery to move with his from Kansas to 
Springfield. From St. Louis he could, at the time, send 
no reinforcements, because his recruits there were un- 
armed. Before any of the troops ordered for the relief 
of General Lyon, however, could reach him, the battle at 
Wilson's Creek had been fought, the brave General was 
dead, and his little army was in safe retreat to Rolla. 
To hold General Fremont responsible for the defeat of 
General Lyon's army at Wilson's Creek is to hold him 
responsible for an event which did not. occur ; for there 
was no defeat, but a real victory, of our army there, — a 
victory which left the little band master of the field, which 
occasioned a backward movement of the Confederates to 
the borders of Arkansas and a division of their forces 
there ; the Texans and Arkansas troops under McCulloch 



46 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

moving- south, and the Missourians under Price moving 
east, while, what was really expected, a safe retreat for 
our forces was secured. Should it be said that the 
orders to Colonels Stevenson and Montgomery should have 
been issued before the voyage to Cairo was commenced, 
the answer is ready: — i. It might not have appeared safe, 
or even necessary, to have issued these orders at that time. 
2. A sufficient reply is disclosed in the reason assigned 
by Wellington for his oversight in not reinforcing and 
furnishing needful ammunition to the little band at La Haye 
Sainte, namely, that under such circumstances it is im- 
possible for any finite mind to think of everything. The 
only matter of wonder is that our commander, in the un- 
tried and perplexing circumstances which surrounded him, 
and in so few days, thought of and provided for so many 
things as he did, and did everything so perfectly. Such a 
rapid comprehension of the complicated situation of affairs, 
such quick and accurate discernment of the means requisite 
to the varied ends to be secured, such promptitude and 
decision in action, and such efficiency in accomplishing 
predetermined results, have few parallels in history. 

Let us contemplate, for example, the startling facts 
which came before him on the 13th and 14th August. 
At one and the same time, on the day first designated, 
came the news of the battle and death of General Lyon 
at Wilson's Creek, of Colonel Mulligan's arrival with the 
Irish Chicago Brigade, 2,800 Union soldiers in all, at 
Lexington, of Price's advance to Warren ton with from 
5,000 to 15,000 men, threatening Colonel Mulligan, with 
the fact that General J. C. Davis, commanding at 
Jefferson City, a district including Lexington, was carefully 
watching the movements of General Price, and in addition 
to all these, a most pressing demand from General Grant, 
commanding at Cairo, for reinforcements to render that 
point secure* On the next day came an absolute order 
from General Scott to ** send 5000 well armed infantry 
to Washington without a moment's delay." At the same 
time there came from General Anderson, commanding in 
Kentucky, a most pressing call to send reinforcements to 
Louisville, which was seriously threatened by the Con- 
federates, who were rapidly annexing that State. 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 47 

Let US now stop for a moment and contemplate this 
requisition from Washington, It was well known to the 
military authorities there that all was in imminent peril in 
this Western Department, and that *'all was quiet on the 
Potomac," that the withdrawal of 5,000 well armed in- 
fantry from the Western Department might be fatal to our 
interests there, while so small a force could do nothing 
really for our security in and about Washington. If 
50,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, 650 artillery, with thirty 
field guns, with the many thousands of men who had been 
hastened to the national capital during the twenty-four 
days since the disastrous affair at Bull Run, could not 
enable our "Young Napoleon" to hold Washington, of what 
avail could the mere addition of "5,000 well armed infantry" 
be to prevent the fall of that city ? While it is safe to 
affirm that this cowardly order did not originate with 
General Scott, it is equally safe to affirm that it did 
originate in a mind of unparalleled stupidity, or in one 
inspired with a base desire to render unsuccessful the 
efforts of a dreaded rival to prevent one of the greatest of 
national calamities, the ruin of our interests in Kentucky 
and Missouri. The bad order, however, was promptly 
obeyed, 2,000 troops being dispatched from St. Louis, 
2,000 from Kentucky, and 1,000 from other sources. 

The measures which General Fremont did adopt under 
the circumstances now claim our attention. For the relief 
of Colonel Mulligan he at once dispatched two regiments 
to Jefferson City, with orders that two others should be 
sent from that place to Lexington. Orders were also 
sent to General Pope, in command of 5,000 men in North 
Missouri, to move his forces to the same point. Similar 
orders were sent to General Sturgis and others, to co- 
operate in the concentration of forces for the relief of 
Lexington. The forces ordered to the city were quite 
equal to those by which it was threatened. None of these 
reinforcements, however, arrived in time to save the 
beleaguered force, which, after one of the most wonderful 
defences known in history, did surrender August 20th. 
The censures heaped upon the General in command, on 
account of the fall and temporary occupation by the Con- 
federates, clearly indicates a forgetfulness of the fact that 



48 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

all great enterprises are attended with some disasters, 
that all that the best commanders can do is to order ade- 
quate forces for the defence of important points threatened 
by the enemy, that unlooked-for occurrences, as was true 
in this case, may prevent the success of the wisest disposi- 
tions, and that when commanders in the management of 
vast and most complicated interests can only be censured 
for small disasters, the like of which attend all vast 
enterprises, we have, in the censures themselves, the best 
possible vindication of the superior wisdom of the conduct 
of such commanders. In the light of these undeniable 
facts and principles. General Fremont is more than vindi- 
cated against the only charges really brought against his 
administration. To General Lyon he did, before leaving 
St. Louis for Cairo, order the only body of forces which 
were in a condition to be moved. As soon as he returned 
to St. Louis, his first care was to forward to Springfield all 
the reinforcements needed. Before any such forces could 
reach that point, however, the blow was struck. At the 
same time we may safely challenge the world to designate 
any specific forces which should have been ordered to 
Lexington, that were not ordered to move to that one 
point, or to show that such orders were not as promptly 
sent as possible. 

The general measures which General Fremont now 
adopted for defensive and offensive operations claim our 
special attention. A part of those measures are thus 
stated by Mr. Greeley : — " News of General Lyon's repulse 
and death reached St. Louis on the 13th. General Fremont 
thereupon decided to fortify that city with all possible 
despatch, as a permanent and central base of operations, 
to fortify and garrison, likewise, Cape Girardeau, Ironton, 
Rolla, and Jefferson City; using for this purpose hired 
labour as far as possible, so that his raw recruits, even 
though unarmed, might be drilled and fitted for service 
as rapidly as might be ; when on the receipt of sufficient 
arms, he would take the field at the head of a numerous and 
effective army, and speedily regain all that should have been 
meanwhile lost." Another measure, not stated in the above 
extract, was to connect all the railroads entering the city 
of St. Louis, that there might be no hindrance in passing 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 49 

troops, munitions, and provisions through it to any place 
where they might need to be conveyed. The most im- 
portant of all his measures was the plan of having the 
Mississippi and all the rivers connected with it commanded 
by ironclads. At his suggestion this plan was adopted 
by the Government. From this one suggestion greater 
results followed than from any other made by any com- 
mander of any department during the war. It was under 
the protection and by the aid of these vessels that Forts 
Henry and Donelson were captured, that General Pope 
succeeded in the capture of Columbus and the Hundred 
Islands, that the Confederate fleet was destroyed at 
Memphis, and that city captured, and that General Grant 
succeeded at Vicksburg. But for the ironclads, our army 
at Shiloh would, no doubt, have been taken. These benefits 
the nation owes to the comprehensive foresight of General 
Fremont. 

While every energy was being put forth to render 
perfect all defensive arrangements, equal diligence was 
observed in preparing an offensive force for a final destruc- 
tion of the Rebellion in Missouri. To put all assailable 
points in a state of security, ii,ooo men were stationed in 
Fort Holt andPaducah, Kentucky; to prevent any advance 
upon Cairo or St. Louis, 10,000 were stationed at Cairo, 
4,700 at Rolla, and 3,000 at Ironton. For offence and 
defence he had 7,000 men at St. Louis, 9,600 at Jefferson 
City, 5,500 in North Missouri, and 2,200 under General 
Lane on the borders of Kansas ; while his recruits which 
were daily arriving were being as rapidly disciplined as 
possible for active service. By almost superhuman efforts, 
he was, in the latter part of September, enabled to take 
the field with an organized army of some 40,000 troops. 
Late on September 22nd he received from General Pope 
a telegram announcing the fall of Lexington, and the 
surrender of Colonel Mulligan and his immortal brigade. 
On the 22nd he left St. Louis for Jefierson City, expecting 
that General Price would make a stand somewhere on 
Missouri river. In this he was disappointed. General Price 
making a backward movement towards the south-west part 
of the State, stopping some time at Neosha, where he 
found General McCulloch with some 5,000 Confederates 

4 



50 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

from Arkansas. On finding that General Fremont was 
on his track, our Confederate commander retreated still 
farther south to Pineville, the extreme south-west corner 
of the State. General Fremont having advanced from 
Jefferson City, some thirty miles, to Tipton, the terminus 
of the Pacific Railroad, spent some time there in putting 
his army in perfect order, as preparatory to a rapid pursuit 
of Price and Jackson. Here, on October 13th, he was 
visited by our most trustworthy and sagacious Secretary 
of War, Simon Cameron, in company with Adjutant-General 
Thomas and suite. It happened to rain just at this time. 
Our visitants from Washington of course saw everything 
in the very worst light possible, and carried back the 
report that all was managed badly in the Western De- 
partment, and that General Fremont would never be able 
to move his army over the roads which had, just before, 
been traversed by General Price and his army. What 
seemed to burden the mind of our immaculate Secretary 
most heavily was the Jinancial condition of this depart- 
ment. He imagined that he discovered some want of in- 
tegrity in one individual who had principal charge of the 
commissariat of the army. As evinced by the resolution 
passed by the House of Representatives in Washington, in 
regard to our Secretary on his retirement from his high 
office, he was as jealous of the integrity of all who had 
charge of army funds as Caesar was of the reputation of 
his wife. Our Secretary had in his pocket, when with our 
army, an order from the President to supersede General 
Fremont, should this be deemed expedient. As the army 
was fast in the mud, however, Mr. Cameron thought it 
best to leave it there under an affirmed incompetent 
commander. 

We must stop here for a moment, to notice a somewhat 
brilliant affair which had just occurred at Fredericktown, 
in the south-east part of Missouri ; a portion of the State 
which had hitherto been under the almost exclusive control 
of the Confederates. At the place designated above, 
General Jeff. Thompson, with a large force, occupied a 
very strong position. Here he was assailed by superior 
forces, sent by General Grant under Colonel Plummer from 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 5 1 

Cape Girardeau, and by Colonel Carlile with another force 
from Pilot Knob. After a fight of two hours, Thompson 
retreated, leaving sixty of his dead behind, among whom 
was Colonel Lowe, his second, in command. Being hotly 
pursued for twenty miles, Thompson's band was wholly 
dispersed and broken up. Nothing now remained but for 
Fremont to disperse the force concentrated under Price at 
Pineville, and Missouri would be totally free from Con- 
federate insurrectionists and invaders. 

We will, also, in this connexion, consider the com- 
position of the army which General Fremont had collected 
for the work before him. The army concentrated at 
Tipton, other bodies which were to co-operate in the great 
movement being in other localities, consisted of 30,000 
men. Of these, 5,000 were cavalry, while the number of 
cannon was eighty-six, a large number of them being 
rifled. Among the cavalry was a squadron known as 
"Prairie Scouts," a body of selected men commanded by 
Major F. J. White, who after a forced march of sixty miles, 
had just, without loss, recaptured Lexington, taking there, 
as Mr. Greeley states, "sixty or seventy prisoners, con- 
siderable property, and releasing a number of Unionists 
captured with Mulligan, including two colonels." There 
was also another body of horse equally noticeable, the 
Fremont * Body-Guard,' under the command of one of the 
most chivalrous heroes of the age, Major Zagonyi. The 
army was divided into five divisions, commanded respec- 
tively by Generals Hun,ter, Pope, Siegel, McKinstry, and 
Asboth. The model after which this army was organized 
was, in the proportions of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, 
the most perfect then known in Europe ; the proportion of 
cavalry being about the same, and that of artillery being 
greater, than those in Wellington's army at Waterloo, the 
proportion of the latter being more nearly conformed to 
that in the army of Napoleon on the same occasion. The 
army under Grouchy sent after the Prussians from Ligny 
consisted of 31,969 men, of whom 4,350 were cavalry, 
2,919 artillery, with ninety- six guns. When General 
McClellan first took command in the department of Wash- 
ington, he found there, as we have seen, 50,000 infantry. 



52 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

i,ooo cavalry, and 650 artillery, with thirty field-8:uns, 
this army having- been organized under our then Com- 
mander-in Chief. Among those high in command in this 
army were individuals like Asboth and Siegel, who were 
well acquainted with the provisioning and movements of 
such bodies. 

If we should refer to the morale of the army, it is safe 
to affirm that no other ever went into the field with more 
assurance of hope, with more devotion to the sacred cause 
which they were to defend, with more determination and 
patience to do and to dare, or with more confidence in 
their commander, than was true of this army at Tipton. 
To these statements there was one exception. General 
Hunter, the second in command, who was certain to suc- 
ceed General Fremont, if the latter should be superseded. 
*' General Hunter," says General Thomas, in his report, 
** expressed to the Secretary of War his decided opinion 
that General Fremont was incompetent, and unfit for 
his extensive and important command." No man in a 
high position ever had immediately under him, and with- 
in one step of his place, a small and ignoble mind who 
did not regard his superior as utterly disqualified for his 
place, and himself most amply qualified to fill the high 
position. A large number of intelligent men in Missouri, 
the report states, gave a similar opinion. It is a singular 
fact that all the Confederate prisoners while General 
McClellan was at the head of our armies, unitedly testified 
that he, in the united judgment of the Confederacy, was 
the greatest general we had, and was more to be feared 
than almost all others. 

Contrary to the prediction of Mr. Cameron and his 
associates, the army of General Fremont did move, and 
did advance — quite rapidly too. By the ist November, 
four divisions of the army were in Springfield,— all but that 
of General Hunter ; General Pope's division having marched 
seventy miles in two days. When on the way, one of the most 
chivalrous exploits known in the history of war was per- 
formed by the Prairie Scouts and Guardsmen, a force of 
300 men under the command, at the time, of Major Zagonyi, 
Major White being detained by sickness. As this small 
force approached Springfield, they found well posted there 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 53 

a body consisting of 1,200 foot and 400 horse, and an 
adequate supply of g-uns. By a sudden charge all this 
force was utterly routed and dispersed. All this was done 
with a loss of but eighty- four killed and wounded. Zagonyi, 
of course, evacuated the place. Major White, however, 
having been first captured and then escaped, taking the 
leader of the capturing force in turn, improvised a home 
guard of twenty-four men, and re-entered and took posses- 
sion of the place. Stationing twenty-two of this force as 
pickets on the outskirts, and holding the rest in reserve, 
he received a flag of truce from the Confederate com- 
mander, asking leave to bury their dead. This request, 
he replied, must be referred to General Siegel, who waS' 
approaching the place. Leave having been obtained, the 
Confederates, under the eye of the brave Major and his 
guard, quietly buried their dead. The victory of Zagonyi 
has been censured as a deed of desperate daring. By not 
dissimilar acts, however, Murat laid the foundation for his 
fame. Such deeds, when of occasional occurrence, impart 
new power to a whole army. Such was the impression of 
this victory upon the army of General Fremont. Certain 
it is that no army was ever better prepared for a decisive 
battle than was his, when all his dispositions were perfected 
for a great movement upon the Confederate army, now 
concentrated in force at Wilson's Creek. Just at this 
time, however, November 2nd, a messenger of ill omen 
arrived in camp, bringing an order from General Scott 
removing General Fremont, and ordering him to turn over 
his command to General Hunter, and report himself by 
letter to Washington. As General Hunter had not come 
up, it was determined, in a council of war, to march the 
next morning, and fight the battle contemplated. In the 
evening, however. General Hunter did arrive, assumed 
command, and ordered, not a battle, but a retreat with all 
possible haste, to the nearest railroads that could be reached 
by different divisions of the army. The excuse for this 
order was that it accorded with instructions received from 
Washington. 

Now commenced a scene which gives us a palpable 
illustration of the extreme shortness of the step from the 
sublime to the ridiculous — the spectacle of one of the 



54 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

bravest and best ordered armies In the world, an army of 
about 40,000 men, running for dear life from 20,000 badly 
furnished and dispirited foes. General Price, by his scouts, 
soon became aware of the dastardly retreat of our army, 
and commanded a hot pursuit, captured not a few prisoners, 
and not a small amount of bag-gage^ until our retreating 
general halted his breathless troops at the places desig- 
nated, surrendering all South-western Missouri to the 
Confederates. 

This retreat, we believe, has but one parallel in history. 
We refer to the famous retreat of Admiral Field-Marshal 
Tschichagoffdown the Beresina. When the French army in 
its retreat from Moscow reached this river, a Russian army 
under the Marshal named lay in their front, on the opposite 
side of the river, rendering a passage over and a farther 
retreat of the enemy strictly impossible, as Buonaparte after- 
wards affirmed. " Not a man of us," he said, " could have 
'.scaped had the Russian army remained where it was." 
As soon as the French army came in sight, however, 
Tschichagoff ordered a hasty retreat to another passage 
twenty miles below, and permitted the French to pass on just 
where and as they desired. So when our army was within 
striking distance of the enemy it had been so earnestly 
seeking, and was in the very act of inflicting upon him a 
crushing blow, which would have permanently delivered 
Missouri from the Confederates, our new commander beat 
a sudden retreat, and fled, terror-stricken, — fled before an 
enemy whose forces were hardly half as numerous or half 
as well provided as his own. Buonaparte would never 
pronounce the name of the Russian commander, always 
calling him " that ass of an Admiral." 

No excuse or apology can be offered for the conduct of 
General Hunter in two particulars — assuming command 
when he did, and making any order from Washington, or 
any other consideration, a reason for not fighting a battle 
before his retreat, in the crisis then existing. There is not 
a law of our country, nor an usage known to war, which 
required him not to permit his predecessor to continue in 
command until after a battle then immediately pending, 
and determined on by the unanimous decision of a council 
of war, had been fought. On the other hand, all the 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 55 

known usages of war prohibited his immediate assumption 
of command under the then existing circumstances. The 
same remarks apply to any orders which General Hunter 
m.ay have received from Washington. Discretion in regard 
to the time when command shall be assumed, and a retreat 
ordered, is always expected in such cases. During the 
battle of Austerlitz, for example, Marshal Sault received 
a positive order from his Emperor to charge instantly upon 
the enemy's line. The Marshal, who was then carefully 
observing certain movements of the Austrians in his front, 
paid no seeming regard to the order. The same order was 
sent a second time, and a second time was disregarded. 
A third time the same order was sent, and that in the most 
absolute form. " Tell the Emperor," was the reply, " that 
I will obey his order, but not now." When the right 
moment arrived, the movement was made, and with 
such results that the Emperor, when he came up, thus ad- 
dressed the Marshal, who had thus three times disobeyed 
an absolute order : " Marshal Sault, you are the greatest 
tactician of modern times." Admiral Nelson gained the 
victory at Copenhagen by continuing the battle after 
having received from his superior in command an abso- 
lute order to retreat ; and received for his disobedience the 
approval of his Government and country. In regard to 
orders received from authorities which cannot be cog- 
nizant of what is rendered necessary by immediate exi- 
gencies, discretion is demanded by the higher laws of 
nature and nations, and by the known usages of war Is 
demanded in regard to the time when and the manner in 
Vvhich orders shall be obeyed. In some circumstances, 
as in the case of Nelson, this higher law demands actual 
disobedience. Had General Hunter, before assuming com- 
mand, permitted that battle to have been fought as 
arranged, his name would have gone down to posterity 
"as ointment poured forth." For having presumptuously 
assumed command, and ordered that retreat, his name, if 
it descends to posterity at all, must go down side by side 
with that of Admiral Field-Marshal Tschichagoff. 

The motive which dictated the order from Washington 
suspending General Fremont and ordering that retreat, 
becomes perfectly palpable when contemplated In the 



56 THE AMERICAN REBELLION, 

light of these palpable facts. On the 13th September, 
when General Fremont received the absolute order to 
"send 5,000 well armed infantry to Washing-ton without a 
moment's delay," it was well known at the national capital 
that all was in the greatest peril in the Western Depart- 
ment, and that the greatest difficulty then was the want 
of arms to supply the recruits. " Reliable information," 
General Fremont telegraphed to Washington, " from the 
vicinity of Price's column shows his present force to be 
11,000 at Warrensburgh, and 4,000 at Georgetown, with 
pickets extending toward Syracuse. Green is making for 
Booneville, with a probable force of 3,000. Withdrawal of 
force from this part of Missouri risks the State ; from 
Paducah, loses Western Kentucky." In the face of these 
appalling facts, "the 5,000 well armed infantry" were 
remorselessly forced from this department. When this 
was done, "all was quiet on the Potomac," with no more 
peril of an attack from the enemy than there was of "the 
falling of the sky ;" while reinforcements were so rapidly 
coming in that, one month later, General McClellan 
reported 152,051 men under his command. On the 15th 
August, according to official reports, there had entered 
the Union army, our regular force included, an aggregate 
of 499,250 men. Deducting from these the three months 
recruits, an aggregate is left of about 420,000 men ; and 
this number was vastly increased by September 13th, when 
the order under consideration was issued. Outside of the 
Department of Washington there were more than 100,000 
unemployed troops nearer that city than was the eastern 
boundary of the Western Department. Why were all 
these passed by, and the requisition made from the only 
spot where real danger was known to exist ? 

We must also bear in mind here that when Mr. 
Cameron and his portegi General Thomas found General 
Fremont, as they thought, stuck fast in the mud, with the 
impossibility of extricating himself, he was left in com- 
mand; "a bad name" being given him at Washington. 
As soon as our veteran commander had extricated him- 
self, however, and was known to be about to precipitate his 
army with crushing force upon Price and McCulloch, and 
thus permanently free Missouri from the Confederates, 



THE COMMAND OF GENERAL FREMONT. 57 

an order was hastened on suspending General Fremont, 
putting Hunter in his place, and ordering instant retreat. 
In the light of all these facts, we may safely challenge 
the world to assign any other motive or cause for those 
under consideration but a deliberate choice that the 
nation should endure eternal disgrace, and the people of 
the Western Department should suffer untold evils, rather 
than that a victory and conquest should occur, — a victory 
and conquest which should crown with immortal honour 
General Fremont. 

The evils which immediately resulted from this disgrace- 
ful retreat from Springfield are thus truly depicted by Mr. 
Victor : — " That last retreat from Springfield let loose all 
the wild elements of disorder, rapine, and murder. The 
longsuffering Unionists of the south-western section 
offered up their homes, many of them their lives, as a 
sacrifice to a cause which could return them only suffering 
for devotion." 

Had General Fremont been continued in command, and 
had he been supported as he might have been, the follow- 
ing results of national importance would unquestionably 
have occurred. In the first place, the world-wide dishonour 
which our nation was enduring from the disaster at Bull 
Run would have been more than wiped out by an anni- 
hilating victory over Price and McCulloch, and the imme- 
diate wiping out of the rebellion in two States, Missouri 
and Arkansas. Our army under Fremont undeniably out- 
numbered that under the hostile commanders, and the 
former was far better appointed and equipped, and was in 
far higher spirits, than the latter. How, we ask, could those 
raw troops from Missouri and Arkansas have withstood for 
an hour the fire of those eighty-six field guns, and all this 
followed up by crushing masses of infantry and cavalry ? 
As was truly said by Major Dorsheimer, then in our army, 
" a victory such as the country has long desired and sorely 
needs — a decisive, complete, and overwhelming victory — 
was as certain as it is possible for the skill and valour of 
man to make certain any future event." Such a victory, 
also, with the advantages of pursuit which General Fre- 
mont possessed, would undeniably have been followed 
by the utter dispersion or capture of those Confederate 



58 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

forces. This would have resulted in the immediate 
suppression of the Rebellion, not only in Missouri, but 
Arkansas, and the turning of the enemy's positions on 
the Mississippi. 

Other events of still greater importance would have 
followed in other departments of General Fremont's com- 
mand. An army at least 100,000 strong would have 
been precipitated upon the 40,000 Confederate forces oc- 
cupying Central Kentucky, on a line extending from the 
eastern to the western borders of the State. These forces 
would, of course, have been driven at once out of this 
State, and beyond the southern borders of Tennessee. By 
the opening of the spring campaign, with the Rebellion 
effectively suppressed in the States of Missouri, Arkansas, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee, and with our ironclads in 
readiness, an army under the protection of the ironclad 
fleet would have passed down the Mississippi, captured 
New Orleans, and thus cut asunder the Confederacy, ren- 
dering its speedy collapse a matter of certainty. Such 
was the actual plan of the great commander of this depart- 
ment. Our military authorities at Washington, however, 
could not at that time endure the spectacle^(we record it 
with shame, but as a demand of integrity) — the spectacle 
of a great and energetic commander in any department, 
that commander being General John C. Fremont. Subse- 
quent events fully vindicated the wisdom of Fremont's order 
pertaining to slaveholders, and the great mistake of our 
venerated President in reversing that order. The act of our 
President was, in effect, a proclamation to all the people in 
the border slave States, that Unionists should risk every- 
thing by devotion to, and Rebels nothing by their treason 
against, their country. It became, consequently, a common 
maxim in those States that Unionists were the only real 
sufferers from the war. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 

We are now prepared to contemplate the military status of 
the nation under the administration of General McClellan, 
first as commander in the department of Washington, and 
practically of all our armies, and then as our actual 
Commander-in-Chief. Immediately after the disaster of 
Bull Run, as we have seen, he was called to the supreme 
command in the department designated, and Nov. isthe, as 
announced by himself, " assumed command of the armies 
of the United States." Immediately after his appointment 
to the supreme command, General Henry W. Halleck was 
appointed Commander of the Western Department, and as- 
sumed command there November 12th. On the 15th of the 
same month, General Don Carlos Buell arrived at Louisville, 
and assumed command in Kentucky. These two generals 
were appointed in accordance with the express wishes of 
the Commander-in-Chief, and had fully developed with 
him, before leaving Washington for their respective spheres 
of action, a plan for the future conduct of the war. All 
these facts were announced to the country through the 
press at the time. 

RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE 
FORCES AT THIS TIME. 

To appreciate the conduct of the war under these 
generals, upon whom all issues, then pending, depended, we 
need, first of all, to attain to a clear understanding of the 
then existing relative positions of the Union and Confede- 
rate armies which were confronting each other at the time. 

In the department of Washington, the Confederates 



6o THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

held possession of the entire territory of the present State 
of Virginia, the small portion of "the sacred soil" occu- 
pied by our forces immediately south of Washington 
excepted. At the same time their batteries on the Lower 
Potomac so commanded that river as to utterly cut off 
all communication between the national capital and the 
Chesapeake Bay and the ocean, by means of this most 
essential channel of communication. All our armies in this 
department lay immediately south of Washington, and 
north and east of the Potomac, we having abandoned to 
the Confederates all the places occupied by our previous 
advances, such as Centerville, Fairfax Court House, 
Winchester, Bunker Hill, Charlestown, Harper's Ferry, 
etc. 

At this time, the Confederates had advanced into Ken- 
tucky, and on a line of some two to three hundred miles 
in extent, occupied the entire central and southern por- 
tions of the State, their line from the eastern border at 
Pointville, Johnson County, through Bowling Green, 
Donelson on the Cumberland river, and Henry on the 
Tennessee, these lying in the north of Tennessee, and 
Columbus on the Mississippi, in Kentucky. At Louisville, 
and opposed to the main Confederate force of Bowling 
Green, lay our main forces in this State, under the im- 
mediate command of General Buell. Strong forces in 
entrenched camps were also located at such important 
points as Cairo in Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, In all 
the places above designated, the Confederates were very 
strongly fortified, particularly at Bowling Green, Forts 
Donelson and Henry, and at Columbus. By occupying 
the three places last named, they fully commanded the 
navigation of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi 
rivers. 

In Missouri, on his arrival there. General Halleck found 
the Union forces safely entrenched, as General Fremont 
had directed, at Cape Girardeau, Ironton, RoUa, St. Louis, 
Jefferson City, and other localities, with the 40,000 men 
who, under the veteran Hunter, had fled from Spring- 
field. This army General Halleck found "all snug" 
at the various railroad points to which they were directed 
*^^o flee. From the beginning he had forces fully armed 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMAISTDER-TN- CHIEF. 6 1 

and equipped, and ready for the field; forces perfectly- 
adequate to all the necessities of the Union cause in that 
State. General Price, on the other hand, with a force which 
had fled precipitately before General Fremont when only 
30,000 strong, occupied Springfield as his centre, and 
from thence had absolute control in the central and south- 
eastern portions of the State. 

A careful survey of the field before us will absolutely 
evince that no armies ever were, or could be, in worse 
circumstances for offensive or defensive operations than 
were the Confederates, or in more propitious relations for 
both kind of operations than were the Unionists, at the 
period under consideration. In Virginia, for example, the 
Confederate forces lay in scattered fragments over that 
great State — fragments at totally unsupporting distances 
from each other. What, for example, could the forces at 
Yorktown, Norfolk, Petersburg, and Richmond do for the 
relief of the army at Afanassas and Northern Virginia, 
provided the latter were suddenly assaulted ? How easy 
it was, by an advance in force by Dranesville, to divide 
hopelessly the forces at Manassas from those at Leesburg, 
Winchester, and Harper's Ferry, and cut up all these 
forces in detail. From Fortress Monroe, from Western' 
Virginia, on the Upper Potomac, and, above all, from 
Arlington, the Confederate forces were directly under 
our strokes, and helpless there. 

No general could ask to have an enemy in a condition 
more exposed to have his line cut asunder, to be cut to 
pieces, routed, and destroyed piecemeal, than were the 
Confederate forces as seen from the central position of 
General Buell at Louisville ; forces distributed on a line 
some 300 miles in extent, and consequently strong no- 
where, easily flanked everywhere, and perfectly helpless 
where their line was at any material point cut asunder, or 
where any of their central positions were flanked, and 
assaulted with superior forces. At the same time, no 
general could have an army in a position from whence he 
could more readily concentrate his forces upon any point 
he should select than had General Buell at this period. 
The circumstances of the case render all these statements 
undeniably evident. 



62 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

In the State of Missouri, General Halleck, as previous 
and subsequent facts absolutely evince, had but to advance 
the forces under his immediate command to Springfield 
in order to clear that State utterly of Confederate forces, 
and to free the Union inhabitants in it from all the intoler- 
able sufferings to which they were subject in consequence 
of their fidelity to their country. 

COMPARATIVE NUMBERS OF THE FORCES CONFRONTING 
EACH OTHER IN THESE DEPARTMENTS. 

It may help us to understand still more perfectly the 
conduct of this war while General McClellan held supreme 
command, if we should now take into distinct considera- 
tion the comparative number of the hostile forces then 
confronting each other in these departments. As we have 
seen, according to the official report of the Secretary of 
War, December ist, 1861, the Union army then amounted 
to 660,971 men. Of these immense forces, nearly, or 
quite, 200,000 were under the immediate command of 
General McClellan. On September 15th, as officially 
reported, there were in this department, not including 
those in Fortress Monroe, 180,000; on the ist December, 
198,213; January ist, 1862, there were 219,767; and 
February ist, 222,196. Directly in front of these forces, 
at Manassas and other parts of Northern Virginia, the 
Confederate forces were less than 50,000 strong. In all 
Virginia, their forces at this time were, undeniably, but a 
little if any more than 100,000 in number. In the de- 
partment of Kentucky, General Buell commanded, soon 
after he entered his department, nearly 100,000 men, his 
force in January amounting to quite 114,000; to wit, 102 
regiments of infantry, ten of cavalry, and sixteen batteries 
of artillery. In front of these forces, General Sidney E. 
Johnston, who commanded all the Confederate forces in 
Tennessee and Kentucky, never had in his command, at 
the various points on his line of about 300 miles in extent, 
a larger force than his namesake then commanded at 
Manassas and Northern Virginia, a force varying from 
40,000 to 60,000 men, and never exceeding the latter 
number. So all Confederate authorities and all known 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 63 

facts fully evince. At all times, General Buell's command 
outnumbered that of his opponent as three to two, and 
uniformly as two to one ; while the forces of the former 
were always more centrally located and more readily con- 
centrated than those of the latter. 

Of the comparative number of the hostile forces in 
Missouri, little need be added to what has already been 
said in former connexions. While General Halleck had 
in Missouri, when he entered the State, a movable column 
of about 40,000 men, — a body which could, in any two 
weeks, have been increased to 60,000 or 80,000, if that 
number were needed, — General Price, as none will deny, 
never had under his command over 30,000 or 35,000 men. 
Such are the real facts in regard to the relative amount of 
the forces under the Union, on the one hand, and the 
Confederate commanders on the other. 



ESTIMATES OF THE UNION COMMANDERS OF THE NUMBER 
OF THE HOSTILE FORCES TO BE ENCOUNTERED. 

One of the most striking peculiarities of our generals 
in command in the departments under consideration is 
their fabulous over- estimates of the number of forces in 
the ranks of their opponents. General McClellan, during 
the fall of 1 86 1, estimated the forces at Manassas and in 
Northern Virginia at 150,000. Just before the opening 
of the spring campaign, in an official report he estimated 
their number, as we have seen, at 115,500. General 
Wadsworth, then in command in Washington, and other 
generals whose positions gave them opportunities to gain 
accurate information, — these commanders, by enquiries from 
prisoners, deserters, fugitives, and others, determined 
the number and names of the regiments in the Con- 
federate army before them, and gave what turned out to 
be a true estimate of the number of said forces. Annoyed 
by such revelations, General McClellan at length pro- 
hibited all such enquiries, and arbitrarily adhered to his 
own opinions. General Sherman, who commanded in 
Kentucky prior to Buell, wrote on to Washington that 
200,000 men were required to drive back the invaders in 
his front. General Buell was ever oppressed with the 



64 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

belief that the forces confronting^ him were too strong to 
be attacked. General Halleck was so appalled by his 
estimate of the vastness of Price's armies that he dared 
not move out of any of his entrenchments, and touch his 
opponent, anywhere. As soon as General McClellan 
approached the Chickahominy, he telegraphed to the 
President that the forces of the enemy were as large as 
his own, and would fight well. Such were the facts in all 
these departments. 

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN DONE, AND OUGHT TO HAVE 
BEEN DONE, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. 

The question may now arise as to what might have been 
done, and ought to have been done, with the 660,000 men 
constituting the Union army at the time we are consider- 
ing. Take one supposition, namely, 240,000 are assigned 
to the department under the immediate direction of General 
McClellan, 120,000 are placed under General Buell, and 
80,000 under General Halleck, 200,000 being reserved 
for any exigencies required. Of the forces under General 
McClellan, 60,000 are placed under General Banks near 
Harper's Ferry, and 60,000 more under General Wool at 
Fortress Monroe, all the forces in Western Virginia being 
concentrated and held in readiness to move at a moment's 
warning. When all was in readiness here, General Banks 
would cross over by Harper's Ferry and other convenient 
places, and move down the Shenandoah valley, and thus 
flank the Confederates at Manassas and in Northern Virginia; 
the forces in Western Virginia being, in the meantime, com- 
manded to move down to Staunton, and reinforce General 
Banks when he might arrive in that vicinity. While 
General Banks should make this movement, Qeneral 
McClellan should have moved out with more than 100,000 
men in front of the central Confederate force under 
General Johnston at Centerville and Manassas ; while 
General Wool, landing 60,000 men at Burmuda Hundred, 
should seize all the Confederate communications south of 
James river, and capture, if deemed expedient, Richmond 
itself. All the Confederate forces, being thus encircled by 
forces greater than their own, would inevitably, by a con- 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 65 

centric and simultaneous movement of the Union armies, 
have been crushed and captured. No military man, or 
civilian of ordinary understanding, will doubt the prac- 
ticability of such an arrangement and movement of our 
forces, or of the certainty that thereby the Confederate 
army in Virginia would have been annihilated and Rich- 
mond captured before the close of 1861. 

In the Western Department, General Buell, of course, 
should not have moved until after the ironclad fleet was 
in readiness. General Halleck, however, should have 
promptly moved his heavy columns upon Price, and driving 
him headlong out of Missouri, and freeing that State from 
all invaders, should have passed down through Arkansas 
to the Mississippi, thus flanking all the Confederate posi- 
tions on the river above, and necessitating the evacuation 
of such places. As soon as the fleet was in readiness, the 
identical move of Commodore Foote and General Grant 
upon Forts Henry and Donelson should have been made. 
These places having been captured, Grant and Foote, the 
lormer reinforced, should have passed up the Cumberland, 
and stopped, not, as they did under command and protest, 
at Clarksville, but should have pushed forward to Nashville, 
and captured that city, — an event, as afterwards appeared, 
perfectly practicable. Having accomplished this object, 
General Grant should have moved north, and confronted 
General Johnston in his retreat from Bowling Green, with 
General Buell in hot pursuit. But one destiny could have 
awaited this Confederate army under such circumstances, 
— its utter capture or dispersion. The way would now have 
been prepared for a movement of our fleet and a large 
army down the Mississippi, New Orleans being its last 
stopping place. While this should have been going on, all 
available forces east and west should have been precipitated 
upon the Carolinas and the Confederate States east of the 
Mississippi. By such dispositions and movements of our 
great armies, who can doubt that there would have been a 
total collapse of the Rebellion by the 4th July, 1862 ? The 
plan which we have sketched for the Western Department 
is, as we have intimated, and as will appear hereafter, iden- 
tical with that formally developed by General Fremont for 
the conduct of the campaign in this department. Plans like 

5 



66 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

that above indicated would very readily have suggested 
themselves to any commander at all familiar with the great 
campaigns of ancient and modern times ; and during this 
war, as all whom I corresponded with by letter or verbally 
upon the subject are aware, it was a matter of the deepest 
grief to my mind that for the want of a proper plan for 
the conduct of the war, a million of lives were being sacri- 
ficed when not a hundred thousand should have been, and 
thousands of millions of treasure were being expended when 
but a corresponding number of hundreds of millions should 
have been. 



WHAT WAS DONE IN THESE DEPARTMENTS. 

The mighty armies of which we have been speaking 
were raised and trained for a specific purpose — the putting 
down of a rebellion, and the doing of this with a prompti- 
tude and energy which would be an honour to the nation, 
and a lesson, never to be forgotten, for all who might be 
disposed to repeat such outrages in future. While the 
nation furnished these leaders such immense forces, Provi- 
dence, up to January 1862, favoured them with the best 
conceivable vv^eather for the movement of armies. General 
McClellan promised the President, on assuming his com- 
mand, that " the war should be short, sharp, and decisive." 
In the presence of a body of soldiers, the President and 
Secretary of War standing by, he said, ** Soldiers, we have 
had our last retreat. We have seen our last defeat." 
The same sentiment was intimated in his General Order 
on assuming command of the armies of the United States. 
These pledges were spread out most approvingly by the 
press before the nation, and "assurance of hope" glad- 
dened the people. Their expectations were heightened 
by the announcement that Generals Halleck and Buell 
were the men whom our young chief had selected, on 
account of the accordance of their views and purposes 
with his. What qualities did these men reveal during the 
following months ? The power of pre-eminent and unex- 
ampled immobility. " Their strength was to stand still," — 
and here they evinced a power seemingly omnipotent- 
Day after day, national expectation was outraged by the 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 6*] 

dull announcement, ** All Is quiet on the Potomac." All, 
too, was equally quiet under Buell and Halleck. Not an 
inch of the "sacred soil" was arrested from the Con- 
federates by the immense forces under the immediate com- 
mand of our " Young Napoleon ; " nor was there a single 
movement made which looked in that direction. Not a 
single battery held by hostile forces on the Lower Potomac 
was silenced, though all those batteries lay in the imme- 
diate presence of our immense fleets and armies, the fleet 
asking but 4,000 troops to insure the free navigation of 
the river. Forty thousand Confederates, distributed over a 
line of about 300 miles in extent, held undisturbed posses- 
sion of Central and Southern Kentucky, and that in the 
presence of more than 100,000 centralized forces under 
General Buell. Less than 30,000 men, under General 
Price, held quiet possession of more than one-third of the 
State of Missouri, and that in the presence of an immense 
army under General Halleck. Nor were there the remotest 
indications that this stolid immobility would ever have 
been disturbed, in any decisive manner, had not an abso- 
lute order from the President compelled our armies to 
move by the 22nd February, 1862. Our Commander- 
in-Chief and his two conferrees have, in one fundamental 
respect, the high meiit of perfect originality in the science 
of war, namely, the origination of the doctrine that the 
true method to "conquer 'a peace," or subdue a rebellion, 
and this in a " quick, short, and decisive" manner, and 
with no backward movement or loss of a battle, is to raise, 
organise, and discipline immense and overwhelming armies, 
and then to keep "all quiet on the Potomac " and every- 
where else, and permit the enemy to do everywhere just 
as he pleases. It was during these months of stupid 
inaction that the Adjutant-General of France visited this 
country, and, after a Careful scrutiny of the status of our 
armies, made to his Government at home the report given 
in the Introduction. It is only within the circle of our 
own national history that events at all parallel to those 
under consideration can be found. 



68 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

EVENTS WHICH DID TRANSPIRE IN THESE DEPARTMENTS 
DURING THIS PERIOD OF INACTIVITY. 

Little events become objects of national interest when 
the public mind is in a state of wakeful expectancy in 
respect to important occurrences. Three events, at the 
time we are considering, did occur in the department of 
Washing-ton, events which have place in history. One is 
the unfortunate affair at Ball's Bluff, on the Virginia side 
of the Potomac; an affair in which, on October 21st, 
we lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, upwards of 
1,000 men, — the lamented Colonel Baker, Senator from 
Oregon, being among the killed. A careful reader of all 
tho facts of the case will find himself utterly at a loss to 
determine upon whom to lay the main responsibility. An 
order from General McClellan to General Stone, in com- 
mand of our forces in Maryland, opposite Leesburg, in- 
formed the latter that General McCall vvas at Dranesville, 
and desired General Stone to " keep a good look-out on 
Leesburg, to see if this movement has the effect to drive 
them (the enemy) away." The order is concluded with 
this suggestion, "Perhaps a slight demonstration on your 
part would have the effect to move them." Under this 
suggestion. General Stone ordered Colonel Devens to 
cross over "opposite Harrison's Island," and make the 
demonstration suggested. This order contained every 
caution which prudence could demand in the making 
reconnoisances, and this with a positive command to 
" return to his present position, unless he shall see one on 
the Virginia side, near the river, which he can undoubtedly 
hold until reinforced, and one which can be successfully 
held against largely superior forces. In such case, he will 
hold on and report." Thinking that he had found such 
a position, he did report, and was reinforced by Colonel 
Baker with a CaHfornia regiment. In their final position, 
they were attacked by overwhelming odds, and slaughtered, 
as stated. If any one can discover real blame anywhere 
here, they can find what the writer cannot. Such disasters 
are common in war under the most prudent commanders. 
One fact connected with this unhappy affair involves 
somebody in infinite criminality. As the affair was re- 



GENERAL McCLEIXAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 6g 

garded, the entire facts not being" known, as a disgrace 
to our armies, twenty-four hours after the event Genera] 
McClellan telegraphed to the President from General 
Stone's head-quarters, that he had investigated, and 
*' General Stone is without blame." As much discussion 
arose in Congress on the subject, and charges of wrong 
thrown at one and another individual, on the 8th Feb- 
ruary, by order of General McClellan, General Stone 
was arrested, and confined, in Forts Lafayette and 
Hamilton, until the i6th August, when he was released 
by an order from the War Department. On returning- 
to Washington, search was made in vain in the War and 
Adjutant-General's Departments for any order for the 
arrest of General Stone, or any record of his arrest. 
General Halleck, the Commander-in-Chief, knew nothing 
of the matter. As the affair now stands, General 
McClellan appears before this nation as having arbi- 
trarily, on his exclusive responsibility, arrested and held in 
durance vile a worthy General whom the man who made 
the arrest and caused the imprisonment had declared to 
be innocent. 

On the 20th December a party of about 4,000 men, 
on a foraging expedition in the direction of Dranesville, 
and under command of General Ord, were attacked by 
General Stuart with a brigade about 2,500 strong. The 
Confederates were defeated, with the loss, on their part, 
as they stated, of 230 men ; we losing nine killed and 
sixty wounded. The bravery evinced by our troops in 
this battle, and the chagrin occasioned by the Ball's Bluff 
affair, together with a desire to finish up the war and 
return home, excited throughout the Union army an 
almost irrepressible dem^and to be led against the enemy. 
Finding this feeling too strong to remain unheeded, our 
commander did put his great army in array, and marched 
out into the open country in front of the enemy's fortifica- 
tions, thus challenging them to come out and fight him. 
As they remained quiet in their stronghold, our grand 
army marched back again, and "all was quiet on the 
Potomac." 

While the expedition under General Burnslde was bein ;■ 
fitted out, our Commander-in-Chief was requested to e.n- 



yo THE AMERICAN RKkELLION. 

ploy the fleet, and a military force only 4,000 strong, to open 
the Potomac by destroying the Confederate batteries, 
10 which I have referred. The force required was posi- 
tively promised, and then withheld under the plea that 
they could not be landed on the Virginia shore at the 
place required. On the admiral in command of the 
fleet affirming that he would be responsible for the land- 
ing of the men, provided they were furnished him, another 
absolute pledge was given that the required force of 4,000 
men should be furnished at a specific time. Again the 
promised force was withheld, under the plea that the 
measure would bring on a general battle. Just as if a 
general battle in front of Washington could be occa- 
sioned by the destruction of a few batteries on the Lower 
Potomac. Just as if, also, our Commander-in-Chief, with 
his great army, was not in Washington for the specific 
purpose of ending the war by fighting a great battle. The 
commander of our fleet now requested the privilege of 
going to sea, and not suffering the mortification and dis- 
grace of remaining idle where he was. Thus during that 
autumn and winter the Potomac remained closed, and 
our immense army, and all the population of Washington, 
were held in dependence for all provisions and supplies 
upon a single railroad. 

Events most humiliating to our country now remain 
to be told. The Confederates, representing themselves as 
200,000 strong, boldly pushed their lines forward, and 
occupied Centerville, Fairfax Court House, and finally 
Munson's Hill, an elevation which overlooks the city. 
In these localities, particularly at the place last named, 
the nation was informed that there were present at 
least 100,000 men, that their fortifications, which were 
mounted with the heaviest ordnance, were of the most for- 
midable character. After long delays and painful hesita- 
tions, however, our Commander-in-Chief did resolve to 
*' take up his legs," and move upon the enemy at Munson's 
Hill. On the night, however, of darkness and terror, 
tears and blood, when the formidable movement was to 
have been made, the enemy was informed of the fact by 
signals from the city, and beat a mocking retreat. When 
our forces took possession of the place, what did they find 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 7 1 

there ? A low line of breastworks, with no ditch or any- 
thing else to protect them ; works mounted with terrific 
engines of war, namely, one immense gun constructed out 
of a large stove pipe, and large logs of wood painted 
black, and so shaped as to appear to be huge cannon. So 
when the Confederates retreated from their advanced posi- 
tions at Centerville, their fortifications were found to have 
been of a similar character, and to have been mounted with 
a terrific line of huge quaker-guns. General McClellan did 
not discover in all these revelations how illusive were his 
ideas of the numbers of the forces before him ; nor did his 
mind seem at all to appreciate the humiliation and chagrin 
which the nation suffered from such facts. Our " Young 
Napoleon" turned out to be, not, what the nation supposed, 
*'a mighty man, a man of renown," but, like Seraiah of 
old, " a quiet prince," whose stagnant imperturbability no- 
thing, not even the spectacle of national dishonour, moved. 

In the same state of stagnant immobility did the immense 
forces put under Generals Halleck and Buell remain. If 
the Confederates had planned our campaigns throughout, 
our 660,000 brave men, who were praying to be led against 
their foes, and thus enjoy an early return to the bosoms of 
their families, could not have been held in a state of more 
perfect inactivity than they were, an inactivity which we 
have never been able to explain but upon one hypothesis — 
an immutable determination, on the part of the three com- 
manders under consideration, not to end the war by the 
collision of armies. 

While these events were transpiring, public attention 
was being turned from what was not being done at the 
points where the only real issues of the war lay, to an 
unimportant expedition which was being fitted out under 
General Burnside for some southern locality. On the nth 
and 1 2th January, this expedition sailed, an expedition con- 
sisting of thirty-one steam gunboats, carrying ninety-four 
guns and some 11,500 men. The results of this expedi- 
tion, ably conducted as it was, were the capture of Roanoke 
Island, of Newbern, on the Neuse river, and other places 
in that part of North Carolina. In a short time, however, 
the little army was dispersed among so many places 
deemed necessary to be held, as to be utterly powerless 



72 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

for aggressive movements in the interior. So matters 
remained, with the necessity of continuous reinforcements 
at each point, until the close of the v^^ar. This expedition, 
hovi^ever, is instructive in many points of view. Some of 
them we will now refer to. 

This expedition, like the many others which were pro- 
jected during this war, had no bearing upon any issue 
on which the fmale of the conflict depended. Instead of 
accomplishing any important purposes for the Union 
cause, they all in common acted as terrible irritants upon 
the surface of the Rebellion, increasing the intensity and 
endurance of its spirit, and multiplying the forces of the 
Confederacy. 

The results of this expedition, we remark in the next 
place, fully explain a mystery which hangs over this war — 
the fact that we had such immense forces in the field, and 
yet that our central armies were always too weak to settle 
the issues pending upon their movements. As General 
Burnside, for example, entered North Carolina, and 
captured Roanoke Island, Newbern, Beaufort, and Fort 
Macon, their permanent occupancy became, it was 
thought, a necessity. Hence, in a short time, his army 
was broken up into small bodies located at unsupporting 
distances from one another, and the central force was 
rendered by continuous depletion too weak for aggres- 
sive action. So it was with our armies advanced into the 
Confederate States. . The permanent occupancy of each 
place taken was thought a necessity. Hence it was that 
in a short time after the war commenced, our weakness for 
offensive movements was in exact proportion to the amount 
of territory we had conquered. At the time we visited 
Washington, in January 1863, for example, we had, 
according to the official report of the Secretary of War, 
upwards of 800,000 men, "well armed and equipped," in 
the field. Yet, when it was required, in order to accomplish 
a movement which, as all admitted, would finish up the 
campaign in Virginia that winter, — when it was required, 
for such a movement, that some 60,000 men should be 
drawn from all this immense force and concentrated at 
Fortress Monroe, our Secretary of War, Commander-in- 
Chief, and even the President, were at an utter loss to 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 73 

know where such a force could be found. The reason was 
the vast amount of conquered territory occupied by our 
forces located everywhere at unsupporting distances from 
one another. Wise commanders never thus disperse their 
armies. When hostile armies are in the field, places are 
never occupied but exclusively for strategic purposes. 
Such commanders act with exclusive reference to one 
fixed purpose — the destruction of the opposing army. 
This end being accomplished, places are easily taken 
possession of. Such, however, is not the form of wisdom 
which dwelt with our commanders. We told President 
Lincoln, at the time referred to, that it would require 
2,000,000 men to subdue the Rebellion on the principles 
on which the war had, up to that time, been conducted, 
whereas 500,000 properly employed were all that were 
needed, — a statement fully verified by subsequent 
events. 

In judging of this North Carolina expedition as a 
military measure, two additional considerations should be 
taken into account — the number of men at the time 
in the Confederate armies in Virginia and the Carolinas, 
according to the estimate of our Commander in-Chief, 
and the use which might have been made of the forces 
under General Burnside. The Confederate army in front of 
Washington, and in North-eastern Virginia, amounted at 
that time, according to the avowed estimate of General 
McClellan, to about 150,000 men ; the position at Manassas 
being then connected with North Carolina by ample rail- 
road communications. If so many men were confronting 
Washington, what vast numbers of additional forces must 
there have been in all the rest of Virginia and the Caro- 
linas. With such an estimate of the Confederate forces 
available for offence and defence, what infinite folly and 
presumption are implied in sending off 11,500 men to 
capture and occupy such places as Roanoke Island, New- 
bern, Beaufort, Washington, and Fort Macon. The fact 
that so small a force was permitted to capture and hold 
undisturbed possession of .so many places in such an 
important part of so great a State, would have convinced 
any commander of ordinary capacities that he had funda- 
mentally erred in the estimate referred to. The veil. 



74 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

however, before the face of our commander remained as 
before. 

Before General Burnside sailed south, we wrote on to 
Washington proposing that the first use made of his 
armament should be the following — that as soon as the 
fleet and army were ready he should be reinforced by all 
the forces at Fortress Monroe that could possibly be 
spared ; that he should then sail, not south, but up the 
Potomac, and disembark his land forces at a point near 
Hoes' Ferry; that while the land forces should flank the 
batteries, to which we have before referred, on the land, 
the fleet should do the same on the river, side ; that these 
batteries being captured. General Burnside should push 
on and capture Fredericksburg, that he should then march 
west, and when, at a point designated, he should be joined 
by a force of at least 60,000 men sent secretly down from 
Washington, should move on and capture the Confederate 
communications between Manassas and Richmond ; and 
that, while this was being done, General McClellan should 
move his whole remaining army to the front of the Con- 
federate position at Manassas, making this movement 
in such a manner as to separate the enemy's forces 
there from those In the northern part of the State. Who 
can doubt that If these measures had been adopted the 
annihilation of the Confederate army under consideration, 
and with that the overthrow of the Rebellion in Virginia 
and the Carolinas, would have been a question of but 
a few weeks' time ? We are well assured that this plan 
was promptly laid before the military authorities at 
Washington. Our Commander-in-Chief, however, was 
of too quiet a spirit to entertain any question of such a 
character. 

To represent still further the state of things in our 
army at Washington, we would here refer to a plan of 
operations submitted to General McClellan during this 
waiting period by General McDowell. In the communi- 
cation which we read before President Lincoln and others 
In January 1863, we remarked that at any time during 
the fall or winter of 1861 an army of 80.000 men might 
have been secretly moved down to the vicinity of Aquia 
village, and from thence, by a march of some fourteen 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 75 

or fifteen miles, to Bealton, where they would seize and 
hold all the Confederate communications south of Man- 
assas. While this was being done, General McClellan 
might have moved out, with the remainder of his army, 
into the front of the place designated, and thus have 
placed the Confederate army there between two resistless 
masses, between which it would have been inevitably 
crushed, or have surrendered without a battle. When we 
read this statement to General McDowell, he remarked, 
** This is very singular," and then took from his desk and 
read a document containing the identical plan above in- 
dicated, specifying the same precise number of men to 
be sent down, and the same places to which they should 
be sent, with the identical front movement specified. 
This plan was laid before General McClellan, when the 
condition of the Potomac army was well nigh intolerable, 
the previous rains having rendered the narrow lanes 
between the lines of huts and tents occupied by the 
soldiery almost impassable. The plan, if adopted, would 
have brought the army out upon dry land, where their con- 
dition would have been infinitely improved, and all military 
movements unimpeded. Our Commander-in-Chief, how- 
ever, seemed to have had an infinite tenacity for mud, and 
never seemed more qui<:t that when his army was too 
deeply mired to be mo^ ed at all, or was lying still amid 
the marshes of the Chu kahominy, and dying piecemeal 
from drinking swamp water. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SPRING CAMPAIGN 01 THE ARMY OF THE 

POTOMAC. 

The longest period has its termination. So it was with 
the listless quietude of our armies. A general order 
issued by the President January 27th, 1862, absolutely 
required "that the 22nd day of February, 1862, be the 
day for a general movement of the land and naval forces 
of the United States against the insurgent forces." The 
particular day was specified because it was the birthday 
of the father of our country, — a very inadequate reason, 
surely, for a determination of the time for the movement of 
great armies. On the 31st of the same month the Presi- 
dent issued another order absolutely requiring a movement 
of the army of the Potomac upon the Confederate forces at 
Manassas prior to "the 22nd day of February next." These 
orders disturbed the stolid immobility of our Commander- 
in-Chief A movement in some direction must be made, 
and " that right early." But whither, and in what form, 
shall the movement be made, were questions about which 
the sagacious mind of General McClellan seemed to have 
come to no positive decision. Up to a short time previous 
he had avowed an intention to let his first blow fall upon 
the Confederates at Manassas. But when the period for 
action drew near, another plan suggested itself — a surprise 
of the enemy, by moving his great army, by water, around 
to Urbana on the Rappahannock, or to Fortress Monroe, 
and from thence move upon Richmond before the enemy 
at Manassas could know what was being done. The chief 
matter of surprise in such a case is that the suggestion 
that such an army could be moved by such means, and the 
enemy not know it, did not convince the President and his 



TITE SPRING CAMPATGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 77 

advisers of the utter incompetency of the General in com- 
mand to plan a campaign or move an army anywhere. 
The idea of the new movement, however, took full posses- 
sion of the mind of its originator, and in a council of war 
with his twelve division commanders he gained a vote of 
eight in its favour ; one given conditionally and four 
against it, — Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, , 
and Barnard voting in the negative, and General Keyes 
conditionally in its favour. The great impediment now 
arose — to gain the assent of the President and his 
immediate advisers to such an obviously ill-advised mea- 
sure, a measure to which their repugnance was well nigh 
irresistible. That repugnance, however, was at length 
overcome, the President and Secretary of War, Mr. Stan- 
ton, consenting on the express conditions — that the navi- 
gation of the Potomac should be previously opened ; that 
a sufficient force should be left behind to render the city 
of Washington perfectly secure against effective attacks 
from the enemy ; and that the contemplated movement 
should "begin as early as the i8th March instant." This 
permission, dated March 8th, was accompanied with an 
absolute order "that the army and navy co-operate in 
an immediate effort to capture the enemy's batteries upon 
the Potomac between Washington and the Chesapeake 
Bay." This order was accompanied by another of the 
same date, requiring that the army of the Potomac, now 
consisting, according to official report, of 222,196 men, be 
divided into five army corps, to be commanded by Generals 
McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, Keyes, and Banks ; and 
that this order should be executed with such promptness 
as not to " delay the commencement of the operations 
already directed to be undertaken by the army of the 
Potomac." 

While these matters were going on, the army and the 
authorities and people at Washington were startled with 
rumours that the enemy had wholly withdrawn their forces 
from Manassas and Northern Virginia. Careful recon- 
noissance soon verifie 1 these rumours, and our grand army 
moved out and took possession of the formidable places ill 
their front ; thereby gaining important experience, as our 
commander stated, in the business of breaking up camps 



78 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

and making marches. After reposing for four days amidst 
" the Quaker guns" by which this great General had been 
previously overawed, that grand army marched back again 
to their former cantonments. 

While our army lay at Manassas, we wrote on to a 
member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War the 
following plan for the coming campaign — that General 
Banks should move his corps rapidly down the Shenan- 
doah valley; that when he had arrived opposite our grand 
army he should be reinforced by another corps of sufficient 
numbers to render his force from 60,000 to 80,000 strong; 
that while the grand army should move directly upon the 
army in their front, the right wing of our central force 
being kept in constant communication with that under 
General Banks, the latter force should, by forced marches, 
move down the valley, capture Staunton, and then seize 
the Richmond and Tennessee railroad. This being done, 
all our forces, flanking the enemy on both wings, should 
press his forces into Richmond, when their capture would 
be only a question of time. In the same communication 
we stated definitely that no important movement should 
be made up the Peninsula from Fortress Monroe. To do 
this, we remarked, was to make a movement of greater 
peril than any other, and one also which, if effective, would 
merely drive the Confederate armies off into the country 
and render their capture more difficult than now. When 
we made this suggestion, we had never heard even a 
rumour that any fundamental movement in that direction 
had been thought of. At that time, also, we were ignorant, 
though we had often inquired upon the subject, that Bur- 
muda Hundred was left unfortified by the Confederates. 
As soon as we learned this, we ever after contended that 
all movements upon Richmond should be made by a central 
army moving down as above indicated ; while another army, 
60,000 or 80,000 strong, should be landed at the point 
designated, and, by a movement westward from thence, 
should seize all the Confederate communications south of 
James river. Every reflecting mind will perceive at once, 
however, that had the plaa which we suggested and stated 
above been adopted, and executed with vigour, the whole 
Confederate army in Virginia would have been at our 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 79 

mercy In four weeks' time. Our great army, upwards of 
200,000 strong-, would have been kept together; all its 
movements and actions would have been unified and cen- 
tralized for the one great issue before it ; and success would 
have been as certain as anything future, and dependent 
upon human agency, can be. When we learned that the 
plan of transporting our central army down to that Lower 
Peninsula had been adopted, we wrote on to Washington 
that no parallel could be found for such a measure in the 
history of all past ages, and that I was quite sure that the 
future of the world would furnish no event at all like it. 



FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIONS TO THIS MEASURE. 

We are now fully prepared to consider the character of 
the measure under consideration ; a measure which, as all 
now admit, the question " Who is to blame for the results ? " 
aside, did, in fact, issue most calamitously to the nation. 
While we may safely challenge the world to offer a single 
valid consideration in favour of the movement, multitu- 
dinous objections of the most obvious and weighty charac- 
ter lie against it. One of its main merits, as presented by 
its author, was, that it would be a surprise to the Confede- 
rate commanders. In one respect it was a surprise to 
them, and to all the world, viz., that so crazy a plan could 
ever have dawned in the brain of any rational man. In 
the respect intended, the folly of our commander's calcula- 
tions becomes manifest in the fact that three days after 
President Lincoln assented to the movement, the whole 
programme was discussed in the Richmond Enquirer. Let 
us now look directly at the fundamental objections which 
lie against this movement. W^e give these objections 
almost in the words in which they are found in the paper 
which we read before President Lincoln and others in 
January 1863. 

I. While time was then most precious, and while, by the 
movement we have indicated, our army could have been 
brought in decisive collision with the enemy in less than 
two weeks, nearly one month passed before the army, 
transported to Fortess Monroe, was able to begin a move- 
ment towards Richmond. In the absence of considerations 



8o THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

of the most weig-hty character — and none such existed — 
such delay is inexcusable. 

2. By this measure, the grand army of the Potomac, 
one of the grandest that ever existed, was, instead of being 
unified and centralised in the relations of its parts, wholly 
broken up, and its independent fragments located at un- 
supporting distances from each other, and this on a line of 
nearly 300 miles in extent. When the movement by the 
Lower Peninsula was determined on, General McClellan, 
we must bear in mind, was relieved from his responsibility 
as Commander-in-Chief, and assigned to one exclusive 
command, the forces sent with him to Fortress Monroe; 
his authority not even extending to General Wool, who 
commanded at this fortress. Let us, for a moment, con- 
sider this new status of this grand army. At Fortress 
Monroe we have one independent command under General 
Wool; in the Peninsula, a second under General McClellan; 
south of Washington, under General McDowell, a third ; 
in the Shenandoah valley, a fourth under General Banks ; 
in Western Virginia, a fifth under General Fremont ; 
and at Washington, a sixth under General Wadsworth. 
Let any one take a map and look over the situation here 
presented, and compare it with the status of this grand 
army before this senseless dispersion occurred, and he will 
perceive at once that no army can be conceived to be in a 
better condition for offensive action than ours was before 
this dispersion occurred, or in a worse condition for offence 
or defence than was ours after it was thus broken into 
fragments. Only two of these bodies, those at Fortress 
Monroe and Washington, were safe for a moment from a 
concentrated assault from all the united armies of the Con- 
federacy, armies located anywhere in Virginia and the 
Carolinas ; while the body assaulted could not be aided 
at all by any other portion of the grand army. Any one 
can perceive, also, the absolute impossibility of unity of 
action in the parts of an army thus broken up, and thus 
distributed, — action for offensive or defensive operations. 
For this unparalleled dispersion of this army. General 
McClellan is to be held exclusively responsible, the arrange- 
ment being reluctantly assented to by the President and 
his advisers, and protested against, in the council of war 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THii ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 8 1 

above referred to, by all the corps commanders present, 
General Keyes excepted, and he assenting only provisionally. 

3. By this measure nearly one half of our grand army 
was detached for mere defensive, while the whole burden 
of offensive, operations was thrown upon the other half, the 
forces under the immediate command of General McClellan. 
The detached forces under Generals McDowell, Banks, 
Fremont, and Wadsworth, amountmg in all to nearly 
100,000 men, were avowedly detained for one exclusive 
purpose, the defence of Washington and Western Virginia. 
The only portion that could act offensively was the single 
body about 130,000 strong, the body that was with General 
McClellan in the Peninsula. In the state in which that 
army was, "before the captivity" to the Peninsula, all its 
parts could, as we have seen, have been employed for one 
united service — offensive operations ; the army, in all its 
movements, being always between the enemy and the 
national capital. When Buonaparte left Paris to meet the 
Allies who had invaded France, he left behind him, in 
the city, but 2,000 soldiers. Had our army, as a unity, 
moved upon the enemy, a larger number would not have 
been required to tarry behind at Washington. The Penin- 
sula movement required that nearly 100,000 be left behind 
to protect the national capital. Such was the strategic 
wisdom of our "Young Napoleon," deliberately choosing 
to meet his foes with one half of the force at his command. 

4. This movement, we remark, in the next place, per- 
mitted the Confederate generals to concentrate at will all 
their forces upon McClellan, or to detach, at any time, 
one or more of their army corps, and precipitate such 
bodies upon the unsupported forces under McDowell, 
Banks, or Fremont. If we had submitted to a council of 
Confederate generals the plan of dispersing and locating 
the broken fragments of our grand army so as to render 
the state of affairs the best possible for them, and the 
worst possible for us, the said council could not have 
devised a plan better adapted to those ends, than was 
that developed by General McClellan. Such was the 
actual division and location of the fragments of our army, 
that had the Confederate generals been able to have con- 
centrated in Virginia a force of 125,000 men, the army of 

6 



8?, THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

McClellan would undeniably have been utterly routed, 
with the most of It captured ; and this to have been fol- 
lowed by the dispersion of the army corps under McDowell 
and Banks, and the national capital in their hands, in less 
than two months' time. Their first measure would have 
been, probably, to have drawn McClellan into a position 
where his defeat and rout would have been certain — a 
measure perfectly practicable. Then they would have pre- 
cipitated crushing masses, first upon Banks or McDowell, 
and then upon the other, and finally moved upon Wash- 
ington. Or they might have sent 55,000 men to hold our 
army in the Peninsula in check, and with the remaining 
70,000 have crushed Banks and McDowell, then have cap- 
tured Washington, and, lastly, have disposed of McClellan. 
Nothing but the weakness of the Confederacy prevented 
the results under consideration, in one or the other of the 
forms indicated. 

5. General McClellan was permitted to carry out the 
plan which he had developed, on the express condition 
that he should leave behind him a sufficient force to render 
Washington perfectly secure against any attack from the 
Confederates. Two most essential facts should be taken 
into the account here, in forming our estimate of his 
character as a general, and also of the plan of operations 
under consideration. We refer to his estimate of the 
amount of the Confederate forces immediately opposed to 
him on the one hand, and to the forces which he purposed 
to have left for the defence of Washington on the other. 
According to his own offlcia] statement, made a short time 
before he left for the Peninsula, March 8th, the Confede- 
rate army near and north of Manassas was 115,000 
strong. According to another estimate made by himself, 
the Confederates had, under General Magruder at York- 
town, from 15,000 to 20,000 men, and 20,000 more under 
General Huger at Norfolk. If we place the remaining 
forces in Virginia and the Carolinas, forces available for 
the defence of "the sacred soil," at 30,000 (and General 
McClellan's estimate would have been larger than 
this), there stood opposed to our grand army a force 
not less than 180,000 strong. Such was the estimate of 
General McClellan of the amount of the Confederate forces 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 83 

Opposed to him, when he devised and executed his world- 
famed Peninsula campaign. Under such circumstances, 
no prudent general in command of a force no greater 
comparatively than that commanded by General McClellan 
at the time, would have divided his army at all ; much 
less would he have separated that army into fragments 
located at unsupporting distances from each other, every 
one of which being less than the force which might, at any 
moment, be concentrated upon it. The best that can be 
said of the plan under consideration is, that a worse one 
is inconceivable, and that this wears but one aspect — a 
deliberate purpose to put that grand army into the hands 
of its enemies. No plan conceivable can be more abso- 
lutely adapted to that end than the one under considera- 
tion. 

But what was his plan for the protection of Washing- 
ton against that army of 115,000 men, which, as he 
reported, lay within a few miles of that city ? He pur- 
posed to take to the Peninsula four entire corps of the 
Potomac army, leaving for the protection of the national 
capital the corps of General Banks, and 20,000 of the 
most poorly furnished and least trained troops in that 
army, under General Wadsworth. General McClellan 
affirms that he left for the end under consideration, in- 
cluding 35,467 men under Banks, in the valley of the 
Shenandoah, 67,428 men, with eighty-five pieces of field 
artillery. Yet, he left in front of these, according to his 
own estimate, a hostile force 115,000 strong; and that with 
the separate forces under Banks and Wadsworth at such 
distances from each other that they could have been 
separately assaulted and crushed by overwhelming forces. 
Judged by his own estimates, General McClellan can, by 
no possibility, be defended against the charge of the most 
senseless and absurd blundering known in war, or of a 
deliberate intent to put the national capital into the 
hands of the Confederates. Such an uncovering to over- 
whelming odds, of such a post as Washington, has no 
parallel in history. 

But the forces which he intended to have left for the 
protection of Washington did not, by any means, amount 
to the number above stated, but to less than 55,000 men. 



84 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Granting- to General Banks all that he is affirmed to have 
had, but ig,022 men were, according to the official report 
of General Wadsworth, present with him, and fit for duty. 
Nearly all of these were new and imperfectly disciplined, 
while three of the regiments in this small force were under 
orders from General McClellan to join divisions on their 
way to the Peninsula, and 4,000 more of these troops were 
ordered to Manassas to relieve General Sumner, so that 
he could embark to Yorktown. Judged by his own esti- 
mate of facts around him, and by other facts of the most 
palpable character, and on the hypothesis that it was the 
deliberate purpose of the commander of the army of the 
Potomac to put Washington into the hands of the Con- 
federate generals, is it possible to conceive of a plan 
better adapted to that end than the one our General did 
adopt ? We choose to impute to him ineffable stupidity 
rather than deliberate treason, — the onlv alternative which 
the case presents. 

6. The circumstances in which this movement was 
planned and executed demand special attention in this 
connexion. At that very time it was a matter of painful 
doubt with the nation which should command James river 
and the Chesapeake, the Merriniac or the Alonitor. The 
former had just, in a crippled condition, been towed up to 
Norfolk for repairs, and was expected out, in a few days, for 
a second round with its puny rival. With our army in the 
Peninsula, with all the Confederate forces concentrated in 
front, and the Merrimac in command of the river and bay 
designated, the capture of McClellan and his army could 
have been only a question of time. What must we think 
of a General who needlessly puts a great army in such 
circumstances of peril as these ? 

7. The next consideration which requires attention 
relatively to the plan of this campaign, pertains to the 
route selected for a movement upon Richmond. This 
route, as any one will perceive who will consult the maps 
and acquaint himself with the facts of the case, is the most 
difficult and perilous that could have been selected. First 
of all, a wide marsh extending quite across the Peninsula 
east of Yorktown had to be crossed, a marsh which could 
be readily defended against immense odds. Farther up, 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 8^ 

there were narrows which were necessar}^ to be passed, 
and which were of the most defensible character. Next, 
the dull stream of the Chickahominy presented still an- 
other formidable obstacle. Then the whole march of the 
army was through the most sickly region known in the 
United States, a region in which the army would be ne- 
cessitated, by drinking swamp water, to become verv 
generally affected with the most wasting disease. By 
this route, also, our army, if so happy as to reach its 
doubtful destination, would find itself before Richmond, 
on the side where, of all others, it was most defensible 
and most strongly fortified. 

8. It was the only possible direction in which, we 
remark again, the city could possibly have been ap- 
proached and all its important communications be left 
untouched. To besiege a place effectively, the end being 
its capture. It must be so approached that the besiegers 
shall hold all the essential conimunications of the place, 
and thus ensure its capture by starvation, if by nothing 
else. In the case before us, the place to be besieged was 
to be approached on the only side which would leave open 
every one of its important communications. The possi- 
bility of capturing the place under such circumstances was 
a matter of extreme doubt ; while its capture, should the 
siege be a success, would be as utterly barren of decisive 
results as was that of Philadelphia by Lord Howe. The 
best that can be said of this route is that it was the very 
worst that could, by any possibility, have been selected. 

9. This plan, we remark finally, was based throughout 
upon a totally false idea of the only true and proper 
mission for which the army of the Potomac was created, 
and put under the command of General McCIellan. The 
mission of armies is, not to capture cities or fortresses, but 
to put down the military power by which such places are 
defended. Suppose that all the Important cities and fort- 
resses of the Confederacy had fallen into our hands, the 
armies of the Confederacy being, at the same time, intact 
In the field, and animated with the hope of success. We 
should have been in the worst condition conceivable, as far 
as final results were concerned. The armies of France in 
Spain, for example, always outnumbered those of Welling- 



86 THE AMERICAN RKBELLIOiNT. 

ton as three to one. Yet in all collisions in the field he 
was invariably successful. The reason is obvious. The 
great armies of France were distributed ail over the Penin- 
sula, and occupying their important cities and fortresses, 
thus rendering it impossible for them to keep large forces 
in the field, — the exact cause of our weakness during the 
war we are now considering. What was the exclusive idea 
which determined, in the mind of General McClellan, this 
Peninsula campaign ? The delusive and fatal idea that 
the great mission of the army which he commanded was 
to get to Richmond, and besiege and capture that. On 
the other hand, the exclusive mission of that army was 
to annihilate the Confederate forces in Virginia, and thus 
insure the fall of Richmond, and with it the collapse of 
the Confederacy itself Had his mind been possessed of 
the true idea of the exclusive mission of his great army, 
the conception of this Peninsula route to Richmond would 
never have approached his thoughts. The main reason 
assigned by General McClellan for the adoption of this 
idea was that the new route was the shortest and most 
practicable route to Richmond, — clearly evincing the 
fact that he was under the control of a totally false and 
vicious idea in regard to the mission of the army which he 
commanded. The most fundamental defects of the plan 
under consideration are twofold — that it had its exclusive 
origin in a totally false and vicious idea of the mission of 
this grand army, and that the army route selected to realize 
this vicious idea was the worst that, by any possibility, 
could have been selected. 



THE MANNER IN "WHICH GENERAL McCLELLAN EXECUTEt), 
OR RATHER FAILED TO EXECUTE, HIS PLAN. 

We shall best understand, not only the character of 
this campaign, but the conduct of the war in general, by 
an immediate consideration of the manner in which this 
Peninsula campaign was executed, or rather finally 
collapsed by that disgraceful retreat to Harrison's Land- 
ing. 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 87 

Relative amount of forces opposed to each other in this campaign. 

In regard to the amount of forces furnished for the 
campaign — a most material fact to be considered — we need 
but to refer to the official statements of the General in 
command. His ofiicial report April 30th, 1862, when he 
was before Yorktown, gives the aggregate of his forces 
as 130,878, of which 112,392 were present and fit for 
duty. This, we suppose, does not include Franklin's, 
division of 12,448 men, which was in the meantime sent 
to him. He thus had, on the arrival of this division, an 
effective force upwards of 124,000 strong, with a co-opera- 
tive force 10,000 strong, under General Wool. When our 
army was lying on the Chickahominy a reinforcement 
10,000 strong was at one time added to it, under General 
McCall. On the 20th June his returns to the Adjutant- 
General's office gave the total strength of his army as 
consisting of 156,838 men. Of these 115,102 were pre- 
sent for duty, 12,225 being reported as absent on special 
duty, sick, or under arrest, and 29,511 as absent on leave. 
If we put his losses prior to this date, losses in battle and 
by sickness, at 10,000 (a very small estimate), then it is 
safe to affirm that General McClellan took with him, and 
subsequently received from Washington, for his Peninsula 
campaign upwards of 165,000 men. If we add to these 
the co-operative force ever available for any important 
exigency, of 10,000 under General Wool, we put down the 
army furnished him at 175,000 men. Some very high 
authorities place the army actually furnished him, General 
Wool's division not reckoned, at 180,000 men. No 
authority places the number below the estimate which 
we have given. According to the highest Confederate 
authorities, authorities sustained by the most palpable 
facts, this immense army was never confronted by a force 
100,000 strong. 

Difficulttes which presented thi mselves on the arrival of our 
army at J^or tress Monroe. 

On the 2nd April our commander arrived at Fortress 
Monroe, finding there his advanced force, consisting of 
some 58,000 men in all. All things on his arrival were 



88 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

found to be mixed up and confused. The means of trans- 
portation, so desirable when a surprise is calculated upon, 
were found to be insufficient ; information with respect to the 
force and position of the enemy was "vague and untrust- 
worthy," and the maps which he ordered to be in readiness 
were imperfect, and in essential respects erroneous. All 
such facts, given in detail in our General's report, reveal 
most clearly that this route for an advance upon Richmond 
was selected on the basis, not of accurate information pre- 
viously obtained, but upon a blind guess that the unknown 
would present less difficulties and g"reater advantages than 
the known. To these natural difficulties, however, a far 
greater one was superadded, that which lay in the consti- 
tution of our General's mind, the sentiment of fear and ap- 
prehension, which gave to the forces confronting him an 
overwhelming magnitude. While before Washington he 
feared to advance " with 20,000 men, against an enemy who 
confronted him with 10,000." Here, in the Peninsula, he 
feared to advance with 56,000 men against an enemy who 
confronted him with but 11,000. When outnumbering 
his antagonist as more than ten to one, he dared not turn 
the enemy's position by a flank movement, which could 
have been easily done in three days ; he dared not attempt 
so hazardous an experiment, lest he should suffer another 
Ball's Bluff disaster. 

The advance and the check of the grand army. 

On the morning of April 3rd the grand army moved 
out in two columns : one on the old Yorktown road, and 
led by the divisions of Generals Porter and Hamilton of 
the Third Corps, and Sedgwick's division of the Second 
Corps, all under the command of General Heintzelman ; 
and the other column, led by General Keyes, and consist- 
ing of the divisions of Generals Couch and W. F. Smith, 
on the Warwick road. A slow and continuous march of 
two days brought both these columns to a sudden stand- 
still before the formidable fortifications which the inde- 
fatigable Confederate commander, General Magruder, had 
erected across these roads, the one on Warwick river, and 
the other in front and around Yorktown. After a careful 
survey of the situation, our commander gravely concluded 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 89 

that a line of fortification thirteen miles in extent could 
nowhere be forcibly broken through, or safely flanked, and 
that, consequently, the enemy must be driven from his 
position by counter fortifications. This was mainly at- 
tempted at the point where the opposite fortifications were 
most formidable, in front of Yorktown. A full month was 
spent in erecting- batteries and getting the ordnance in 
place, when the enemy, having gained all the time de- 
sired to get ever}^thing in order in and about Richmond, 
retired, and left our grand army and great commander 
" alone in their glory." It should be borne in mind here, 
that while upwards of 112,000 men lay thus idle, and held 
at bay, in the presence of 11,000 enemies, Franklin's 
division, upwards of 12,000 strong, lay in transports near 
the mouth of York river, and might have been landed on 
the north shore of that river, and by a flank movement 
have rendered the position at Yorktown untenable. 
Nothing can be more humiliating to any nation than 
was such a check of such an army before such a line of 
fortifications, and these defended by such a contemptible 
force. Yet, in these circumstances, as in all others, the same 
apparition haunted the mind of our "Young Napoleon" 
of overwhelming forces in his front, and we hear also the 
same " great and exceeding bitter cry " for reinforce- 
ments. In his communications to the President he 
affirmed, while lying with upwards of 100,000 men around 
him, and not one-tenth as many in his front, that he would 
probably have the whole Confederate army on his hands, 
" probably not less than 100,000 men, and possibly more." 
To quell this crying, Franklin's division was detached 
from McDowell, and sent down to the Peninsula. This, 
however, was not enough. Soon after, as we shall see, 
the apparition of opposing forces swelled to 200,000, and 
would unquestionably have swelled to 300,000 had his 
own army been under 250,000 strong. 

The eflect of this month's delay amid those deadly 
marshes was as great a loss of life to our army as would 
have been occasioned by an important battle, and upon its 
morale as bad as a defeat. Rev. J. J. Marks, D.D., in his 
account of this campaign, says, *' In a short time the sick 
in our hospitals were numbered by thousands, and many 



90 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

died so suddenly that the disease had all the aspect of a 
plague." General J. G. Barnard, General McClellan's 
Engineer-in-Chief, in his report, says, ''We lost few 
men by the siege, but disease took a fearful hold of the 
army ; and toil and hardships, unredeemed by the excite- 
ment of combat, impaired their morale. We did not carry 
with us from Yorktown so good an army as we took there. 
Of the bitter fruits of that month gained by the enemy, 
we have tasted to our heart's content." In the judgment 
of our general, however, the matter at Yorktown was a 
great triumph to our arms, a triumph so great that he sug- 
gested to the President the idea that the regiments consti- 
tuting the army of the Potomac should be permitted to have 
inscribed upon their banners the word Yorktown. 

The advance from Yorktown. 

As soon as it was known that Yorktown had been evacu- 
ated, a vigorous pursuit was ordered, a pursuit headed by 
General Stoneman, with four regiments, a squadron of 
cavalry, and four batteries of horse artillery. This advance 
was followed by the divisions of Hooker and Kearny on the 
Yorktown, and by those of Casey, Couch, and W. F. Smith, 
on Winn's Mill road. In front of Williamsburg, the advance 
was checked by the Confederate forces occupying Fort 
Magruder, which was located at the junction of all the roads 
leading farther up the Peninsula. The fortifications here 
presented were quite formidable, and every preparation had 
been made for a strong resistance, this being done by cutting 
down the forests on the right and left, and by filling the 
open ground in front with rifle pits. Had General McClellan 
been with the advance we should probably have had an- 
other delay here, such as we had before Yorktown. As it 
was, the next morning after the pursuit was commenced 
found the advanced division under the dauntless Hooker in 
the immediate presence of the enemy. Knowing that there 
were at least 30,000 of our troops in supporting distance 
from him, not over tv/o miles away, and that the main army 
was just in their rear. Hooker opened the battle at 7.30 
a.m., and, strange to relate, had to sustain the fight single 
handed until 4.30 p.m. At this time General Kearny 
arrived with his division, pushed to the ^ront, and allowed 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. QI 

Hooker to act as a reserve. Before night set in, the several 
advanced divisions had gained such advantages as to render 
the place untenable. In this battle we lost 456 killed, 
1,400 wounded, and 372 missing, — 2,228 in all; 1,575 of 
these being from the single division of Hooker. Towards 
evening General McClellan arrived at the front, and at 
10 p.m. sent to Washington the following lugubrious dis- 
patch : — '* After arranging for a movement up York river, 
I was urgently sent for here. I find Joe Johnston in front of 
me in strong force, probably greater a good deal than my own, 
and very strongly entrenched. Hancock has taken two 
redoubts, and repulsed Early's brigade by a real charge 
with the bayonet, taking one colonel and 150 prisoners, 
killing at least two colonels and as many lieutenant- 
colonels, and many privates. His conduct was brilliant 
in the extreme. I do not know our exact loss, but fear 
Hooker has lost considerably on our left. I learn from 
prisoners that they intend to dispute every step to 
Richmond. I shall run the risk of at least holding them 
in check here, while I assume the original plan. My 
entire force is, undoubtedly, considerably inferior to that 
of the Rebels, who will fight well ; but I will do all I can 
with the force at my disposal." 

While our commander was writing such Jeremiads, 
"the Rebels" whom he hoped to "hold in check here'* 
were leaving with such precipitation that they left all 
their badly wounded as prisoners of war. On awaking 
the next morning, and learning the real facts, he announced 
a complete victory, with " some 300 uninjured prisoners, 
and more than a thousand wounded in our hands." 

The distribution 0/ our army on the ChickaJiominy. 

With no incidents worthy of special regard in a history 
like the present, our entire army, on the 22nd May, 
found itself quietly located on the Chickahomlny ; Norfolk 
in the meantime having been abandoned by the Con- 
federates, and taken possession of by our forces under 
General Wool. We now have a special opportunity to 
judge of the real generalship of General McClellan. For 
the first time since he assumed the command of a great 
army we find him in circumstances in which a decisive 



92 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

collision was certain to occur between his and the concen- 
trated forces of the Confederates, and in which he was 
expected to assume the offensive. One of the special pecu • 
liarities of a great commander will be found in a wise 
disposition and arrangement of his forces for offensive and 
defensive operations. No opportunity will be allowed for 
a surprise, and no one part of the army will be left in a 
readily assailable position out of the reach of a ready and 
adequate support from the rest of the army. It is a well- 
known principle in the science of war that when a river 
separates the parts of an army from one another, that said 
stream should be covered with such a number of bridges 
that the army can be moved back and forth over the 
stream as readily as if it were not there. For a General 
to place his arm.y on the two sides of a stream, when and 
where these conditions of support do not exist, is to 
leave the parts exposed to attack at the mercy of the 
enemy. In all the respects indicated, and they are all 
fundamental, the arrangement of our army in the position 
under consideration was in utter violation of the known 
principles of the science of wan This line, extending from 
Mechanicsville down the Chickahominy, and across the 
river to Fair Oaks, was at least twenty-five miles in extent. 
This is a capital error in war, the error which occasioned 
the defeat of Archduke Charles at Wagram, an error which 
creates a liability to have the line broken in the centre, 
and the sundered parts destroyed in detail, or to have 
the whole line rolled up by overwhelming assaults upon 
either wing. But the most fundamental error of General 
McClellan's line remains to be designated. As soon as 
his line was established on the Chickahominy, and a single 
bridge on his extreme left was erected, two entire corps, 
Keyes's first, and then Heintzelman's, were passed over and 
established on the south side of that stream. The two 
divisions of Keyes were advanced, far beyond any imme- 
diate support, to within about six miles of Richmond ; 
Casey's division being stationed at Fair Oaks on the York 
River Railroad, and Couch's at Seven Pines, about one 
mile to the south-east on the Williamsburg road. At 
some three to four miles east of Keyes lay the corps of 
Heintzelman; Kearny's division on the railroad back of 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 93 

Savag"e's Station, and Hooker on the Williamsburg road. 
The nearest support to these troops, the only body from 
which help in any important exigency could be received, 
was the Central Corps under General Sumner, a corps 
which lay some six miles off, on the north side of the 
Chickahominy. At Richmond lay the centralised Con- 
federate army, more than 150,000 strong according to the 
avowed estimate of General McClellan, its real number 
not being then over 50,000. 

The following facts will enable the reader to form a 
distinct apprehension of the state or distribution of our 
army at this time. The Chickahominy is a sluggish 
stream, nowhere fordable except at very low water. It 
runs through a swampy, miry bottom from one half a mile 
to a mile wide, the bottom being bordered by low and 
irregular bluffs. This stream, at a distance of from ten 
to fifteen miles north of Richmond, runs in a direction a 
little south of east, and enters the James river some 
twenty to thirty miles distant from the location of our 
army, which was distributed north of Richmond. Our 
army, of course, found all the bridges over the stream 
broken down. As soon as a single bridge on our left was 
completed, the two corps named were passed over and 
located as stated, that of Keyes about midway between the 
crossing and Richmond, and that of Heintzelman some 
three or four miles nearer the bridge ; the two corps being 
out of supporting distance from each other, and their 
nearest support being, as stated, some six miles distant on 
the opposite side of the stream. The formation of our 
army corresponded to two sides of a triangle : the apex 
being at the bridge designated ; the northern side consist- 
ing of the centre and right wing, extending some ten to 
fifteen miles in a north-western direction to Mechanics- 
ville, a place located some five or six miles north of this 
stream ; while the other side terminated, as stated, at Fair 
Oaks, — the full extent of our line being upwards of twenty- 
five miles. There was no bridge at all, be it remembered, 
between the separated parts of our army ; the only bridges 
over the stream being the one at the apex referred to and 
the railroad bridge, which was near this. Can we conceive 
of a worse distribution of forces than we have in this case ? 



94 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Had it been the deliberate purpose of our General — no such 
motive being- attributed to him — to ensure the capture 
of the two corps located south of that stream, that of 
General Keyes especially, it is impossible to conceive of 
dispositions better adapted to that end than were those 
actually made. 

Battle of Fair Oaks. 

General Johnston, who commanded at Richmond at 
this time, was too wise a commander not to discern the 
opportunity thus put into his hands, and made instant 
arrangements to avail himself of it. Before General Keyes 
had time to fortify his position, the main body of the Con- 
federate forces were in motion. According to the original 
arrangements, the battle was to have been commenced 
early in the morning, May 31st. The excessive rains of 
the previous afternoon and night, however, rendered it 
impossible for the attack to be made before i p.m. At 
this time, Casey's division being suddenly and unex- 
pectedly assailed by overwhelming forces, in front and on 
both wings, was, after a most heroic and obstinate resist- 
ance, thrown into confusion, and in utter rout driven 
back upon General Couch's division at Seven Pines. This 
body, after a similar resistance, was hurled back in a 
similar state, while the whole corps rushed, a mingled 
mase, the Confederates in hot pursuit, in the direction of 
that of General Heintzelman. 

As soon as the roar of the guns at Fair Oaks was heard, 
General Sumner, who was constructing two bridges over 
the Chickahominy, one having been carried away by the 
floods, made every possible effort to cross his corps over 
the remaining one. This bridge was in such an imperfect 
state that only infantry, a few in a line, and a few field 
guns, could be got over. At about 6.30 p.m., just as the 
Confederates were interposing between Keyes and Heint- 
zelman, for the purpose of first capturing the former and 
then destroying the latter, Sumner, with Sedgwick's 
division of his corps, came upon the field and filled the 
gap which the Confederates were about to occupy. By 
this interposition, the battle was protracted until darkness 
terminated the conflict. 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 95 

In the morning', after two or three hours' indecisive 
fighting, the Confederates retired unpursued from the field, 
and after stopping for the rest of the day to gather up the 
spoils on the grounds which had been occupied by the 
corps of General Keyes, leisurely returned to Richmond. 

In this battle. General McClellan admits a loss, in killed, 
wounded, and missing, of 5,739 men ; the Confederates 
admitting a loss of upwards of 4,000. The rain and flood, 
which necessarily delayed the advance of the Confederates 
from Richmond, prevented the destruction of the corps 
of Keyes and Heintzelman, — that of the former without a 
question. In his despatches. General McClellan, as if to 
divert attention from his own errors, charged that "Casey's 
division gave way unaccountably, and discreditably." 
That division did not give way until more than one-third 
of its number lay dead or wounded upon the bloody field ; 
Keyes's corps losing 4,000 out of 12,000 men. In this 
battle General Johnston was severely wounded, and 
General Lee succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief of the 
armies of the Confederacy. Soon after this, the bridges 
being completed, our whole army was established on the 
south side of the Chickahominy ; the corps of General 
Porter and the division of General McCall located at 
Mechanicsville, excepted. 

What should have been do7ie when General McClellan lay before 
Yorkfown, or when he arrived upon the Chickaho7niny. 

Success in war depends fundamentally upon what is 
denominated economy of forces. A great commander so 
plans his campaigns that every form of force under his 
:;ontrol is made available and efficient for the grand 
result at which he aims. All small bodies are brought 
into requisition, and so located as to render efficient help. 
Wellington, for example, so disposed of the parts of his 
army at Waterloo, that cowards who could not be made 
to stand a direct fire or charge at all, performed a part of 
service as important as that rendered by veterans. Let 
us apply this principle to the case under consideration. 
When General McClellan lay at Yorktown, he asked for 
the addition to his army of General Franklin's division; 
making that army upwards of 130,000 strong. Suppose 



96 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

that Franklin had been retained where he was, and that 
the contingent asked for had been made up from the com- 
mands of Burnside and Wool, — a measure perfectly practic- 
able. With this force, General McClellan moves up and 
establishes himself on the Chickahominy. While this was 
being done, all the forces under Generals McDowell, 
Banks, Fremont, and Franklin (General Wadsworth and 
his forces being left in the garrisons at Washington), are 
combined into a second army for a co-operative move- 
ment upon the army of General Lee, and Richmond. All 
these combined would constitute an army at least 90,000 
strong, and these could have been readily increased to 
100,000 by forces brought in from other departments. 
This army should have moved upon the Confederates from 
the west and north-west of Richmond ; while McClellan, 
passing his over the Chickahominy, should have moved 
direct upon the city, keeping his right wing in communi- 
cation with the left of the co-operative forces. Here we 
should have had a real economy of all the forces available for 
this Virginia campaign ; and who can doubt the practica- 
bility of such a disposition of our armies, or the certainty 
of their speedy success? As it was, nearly 100,000 men 
were held in stupid idleness, and more than 175,000, after 
being wasted with disease, were driven in disgrace from 
the Chickahominy down upon James river. To us, it 
has ever been a matter of unutterable wonder that such 
obvious combinations of the national forces as that above 
indicated did not occur to our Generals in command, and 
that when the necessity of just such combinations was 
continuously and importunately urged, and backed up by 
the highest influence, upon our military authorities in 
Washington, the importance of said combinations could not 
be appreciated. Our leading commanders and military 
authorities manifested infinite skill in one direction only — 
the art of scattering and wasting, instead of economising, 
the forces intrusted to their direction. 

Events which preceded the retreat to HarrisorC s Landing. 

We have already stated the facts pertaining to the 
separation of the portion of the Potomac army which did 
nut follow McClellan to the Peninsula, — a separation and 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 97 

distribution which left the disunited parts exposed to be 
slaughtered in detail, as the enemy might choose. No 
sooner was McClellan established in the Peninsula than 
General Johnston concentrated the main portion of his 
army at Richmond, leaving Jackson to guard against any 
advances from Western Virginia and down the Shenandoah 
valley. As soon as General Banks, in his advance down 
the valley referred to, had left one of the divisions of his 
corps under General Shields in front of Winchester, and 
taken the other to Manassas to relieve the corps of 
General Sumner, that it might go with General McClellan, 
General Jackson precipitated the force under his com- 
mand upon the division under General Shields. In a 
battle fought March 23rd, the former was signally de- 
feated, by the superior generalship of the latter, and com- 
pelled to retire precipitately back to his former position. 
Becoming apprehensive of a combination between the forces 
of Fremont and Banks for a flank movement such as we 
have indicated should have been made, Jackson determined 
to anticipate the event by a sudden advance, first against 
Fremont, and then against Banks. Having been largely 
reinforced, he left General Ewell to hold General Banks 
in check, and moved, May 7th, with the rest of his com- 
mand, via Staunton, up into the mountain region. 
General Milroy, whose force was nearest the advance of 
the invaders, retreated to McDowell, and there awaited 
reinforcements. At about 8 or 9 a.m.. May 13th, a 
friend of ours. Dr. Dorsey, a surgeon in our army, from 
whom we received the following account, had, with several 
associates, ascended to the roof of the house where they 
were stopping, and were surveying the scene around them. 
They had been there but a few moments when Dr. Dorsey 
called the attention of his associates to certain dark lines 
which had become visible, and which were circling the 
elevations but a few miles distant. General Milroy was 
instantly sent for, who pronounced the moving forces, 
before them to be the advance of General Jackson's army. 
At 10 o'clock the same morning. General Schenck arrived 
with several thousand reinforcements, having marched^ 
his brigade from Franklin, thirty-four miles distant, in 
twenty-three hours. Being the senior officer. General. 

7 



98 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Schenck assumed command. At a council of war, which 
was immediately called, it was deemed unsafe to attempt a 
retreat before evening. Learning- that the enemy were 
planting a battery on the mountain, from whence our 
whole encampment would be commanded. General Milroy 
proposed that they should be assaulted on the high 
plateau where they were encamped. On being asked 
whether he would lead the assault, the veteran Milroy 
replied that "that was just what he wanted to do." 
Four regiments, one from Virginia, and three from Ohio, 
were accordingly detached for the perilous service. The 
assault of this body was, to the Confederates, a perfect 
surprise in the day time. Before they were fully aware of 
the advance, the bold Milroy with his dauntless regiments 
was in close range. For one hour and a half a most 
destructive fire was poured into the ranks of the enemy, 
when Milroy retired in good order, bringing with him our 
entire killed and wounded. Our loss was 256, of whom 
145 were slightly wounded. Jackson reported a loss on 
his part of 71 killed, among whom were three colonels 
and two majors, and 390 wounded, among whom was 
General Edward Johnston. In the evening our forces 
were quietly withdrawn in the direction of Franklin ; while, 
early the next day, the main force of Jackson, a show of 
pursuit having been made by a small body, was found 
some fourteen miles away on their return to Staunton. It 
is said that this surprise by Milroy was a source of deeper 
chagrin to Jackson than any event of his military life. 
He was the hero of surprises, and hence his bitter chagrin 
at being so signally surprised himself. 

On his return to the Shenandoah valley he united all 
his forces for an advance upon General Banks, who had 
retreated from his advanced position to Strasburg. In 
this advance, with an admitted loss on his part of 68 
killed and 329 wounded, Jackson claimed to have cap- 
tured two guns, 9,354 small arms, and 3,050 prisoners. 
General Banks admits a loss in his retreat through 
Winchester to Williamsport of 38 killed, 155 wounded, 
and 711 missing. This does not include the loss of 
the sick and wounded necessarily left behind, and that 
occasioned by the total rout of Colonel Kenly near 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 99 

Front Royal. In this unfortunate affair our loss was 
quite 700 prisoners, a section of rifled lo-pounders, and a 
larg-e amount of stores. By special orders from Washing- 
ton, General Fremont, by a march which none but such 
men as he was could have made, moved 15,000 men 
down from the mountain region into the valley; while 
General McDowell moved out two divisions of his army at 
Fredericksburg, into the same region, to intercept Jackson. 
It was now the turn of this bold and daring commander 
to run a race for dear life himself. By a succession of 
wonderful dodges between his two assailants, and after 
losing a battle, but gaining an opportunity to retreat, at 
Cross-Keys, and gaining one in a fight of some 8,000 
Confederates against 3,000 Unionists, he finally escaped 
from the toils in which he was ensnared. Two circum- 
stances, as General McDowell testifies, however, pre- 
vented his capture — -the want of energy in General Ord in 
pushing his division on to Strasburg, and that of General 
Shields, under false information subsequently obtained, 
moving upon the same place upon a different road from 
that on which he had been specifically commanded to 
move. But for these two circumstances, two divisions 
from McDowell's command would have intercepted Jack- 
son at Strasburg, and with forces larger than his would 
have held him in check until the arrival of Fremont with 
an army 15,000 strong. These would have rendered the 
capture of the Confederate forces a certainty. General 
Fremont, it should be remembered, reached Strasburg 
June I St, but a few hours after Jackson had passed 
through the place. The facts we here state were sources 
of the deepest regret to both McDowell and Fremont. 

A grand mistake. 

At the time when General Jackson advanced up the 
Shenandoah, General McDowell, with an army most admir- 
ably trained, and fully 41,000 strong, was in readiness to 
move down from Fredericksburg, and assume a position 
before Richmond on the right of General McClellan, and 
had advanced to some distance one division of his army 
for the purpose designated. At this time the President 
and Secretary of War came down to Fredericksburg, and, 



lOO THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

contrary to the most earnest remonstrance of General 
McDowell, required him on their return to Washington 
to detach two divisions of his army to co-operate with 
General Fremont in disposing of Gen'^ral Jackson, and 
thus suspend his movement upon Richmond. " This 
order," says General McDowell, "was a crushing blow for 
us all." He had, as he informed us in a personal inter- 
view, given his army a special training in reference to 
rapid marches, and had everything in readiness for a most 
speedy movement upon Richmond. The presence of Jack- 
son and Early with the best portion of the Confederate 
army, away off from its proper centre, and at such a dis- 
tance as Winchester, was all that could have been desired 
for an effective movement and assault upon Richmond 
and the Confederate forces remaining there. In short, the 
presence of Jackson at Winchester was the golden oppor- 
"ijnity for the Union army. In these veiws General 
McDowell is unquestionably correct, and the fears of our 
President and his Secretary dictated an order most calami- 
tous to the destiny of the campaign. Had McDowell 
been permitted to make the movement which he had 
planned, and which, with the full consent of the President 
and his advisers, had been determined on, Jackson would 
have passed up the Shenandoah more rapidly than he 
did when fl:.eing from the meshes which his antagonists 
were throwing around him. He would have been too late, 
however, to aid in the defence of Richmond. General 
Fremont, also, with the 15000 men whom he brought with 
him from Western Virginia, and with 10,000 more from 
General Wadsworth's command, might have been speedily 
sent after McDowell, and thus rendered our army about 
Richmond all powerful for offensive or defensive operations. 
All that could have been required for the protection of 
Washington under the circumstances would have been the 
forces under General Banks located at Manassas, and what 
would have remained under General Wadsworth in and 
about the city. 

There is but one consideration which throws doubt over 
the results of the dispositions under consideration, had 
they been made in full, as we have indicated. This con- 
si<jieration is found in the palpably revealed character of 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. lOI 

General McClellan. Would he have consented to have 
co-operated with General McDowell, the latter retaining- a 
separate command, even supposing his forces to have been 
rendered 65,000 strong? Would he have moved at all, 
and acted efficiently, had all thesQ forces been placed under 
his command ? We confess to candid and serious doubts 
relatively to each of these questions. He had previously 
sent on to Washington an absolute request that McDowell 
should not be sent down at all unless he was placed under 
his (McClellan's) entire command. Would he have co- 
operated with an independent auxiliary force imposed upon 
him in opposition to such remonstrance ? Then what 
act of his previous command presents the remotest indica- 
tion that, with the addition of 40,000 or even 60,000 
men to his army, he would have acted at all against the 
Confederates? Palpable non-fidelity to absolute pledges 
previously given annihilated all rational confidence in any 
pledges he might give. When before Yorktown, for ex- 
ample, he sent an absolute pledge to Washington that if 
Franklin's division should be sent to him it should be 
promptly employed in a flank movement north of York 
river. When that division did arrive, it was suffered 
to lie two whole weeks in the transports at the mouth 
of the river without doing anything at all. When 
lying on the Chickahominy, he sent a similar promise 
that as soon as General McCall's division should arrive 
he would move upon Richmond. When that division 
arrived, it was sent off to Mechanicsville, and settled down 
there as if for a year to come, and no intent to move as 
promised was manifested. An addition of 40,000 to his 
army would raise his effective force to about 155,000 men, 
and this with upwards of 200,000 in the army opposed 
to him. Would he have acted against such imai^ined 
odds ? The idea that he would have done so is rendered 
absurd by all the facts of his previous military history. 
But one deduction remains to us, to wit, any army, 
however large, under such a commander as George B. 
McClellan, is doomed ; and our military authorities ought 
to have perceived this before he had remained three 
months under their immediate observation. More of this 
in another connexion. 



I02 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Statement of some immaterial and material facts. 

When General jMcClellan was lying- before Yorktown, 
and we had looked over the distribution of our forces under 
the separate commands of Generals McDowell, Banks, and 
Fremont, we expressed the full conviction that the Con- 
federates would employ the leisure afforded them in 
fallini^ separately upon these isolated bodies, and that 
the first effective blow would fall upon Banks. Hence, 
our breathless inquiry on going- down from the college to 
the city was, " Have you heard from Banks ? Any news 
from Banks? " When the blow predicted had fallen, and 
Jackson had returned to the vicinity of Richmond, we 
predicted that the im.mobility of McClellan and the sickly 
state of his army would induce the Confederates to take 
the initiative, and precipitate themselves upon our forces; 
and gave it as a positive opinion that their first blow 
would fall upon McCall at Mechanicsville. All the corps 
of our army but that of General Porter had been trans- 
ferred to the south side of this stream ; and this single 
corps, like those of Keyes and Heintzelman on the other 
side, was distributed as if on purpose to be suddenly 
assaulted and " gobbled up " by the enemy. 

We now invite very special attention to some interest- 
ing facts, and to the explanation of the same facts, which 
had a material bearing upon the calamitous events which 
followed. It will be remembered that General Stuart, 
with i;500 cavalry, crossed the Chickahominy June 12-13, 
and passed quite round our army north of this stream, 
and after dispersing a body of cavalr}'-, burning two 
schooners laden with forage, and fourteen waggons, 
taking off 165 prisoners and 260 mules and horses, 
recrossed the stream below our army, and returned in 
safety; and that the forces which moved 'out from Rich- 
mond crossed this stream, and having formed a junction 
with Jackson coming from the west, fell unexpectedly to 
our army upon McCall' s division at Mechanicsville. It 
will also be remembered that one of our regiments of 
cavalry, the Illinois 8th, was left, after the retreat of our 
army to James river, in an isolated position up the 
Chickahominy, and escaped capture by passing round the 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. IO3 

Confederates via Yorktown. It was between this body 
of cavalry and our main army that Stuart, in the first 
instance, and then Longstreet and his divisions, crossed 
unopposed and unnoticed that stream. How did these 
sino"ular events occur ? Soon after McClellan arrived 
upon the north side of this stream. General Stoneman 
with a brigade of cavalry was stationed to our right up 
this stream. After acquainting himself with the state 
of things around him, he informed the General in supreme 
command that if reinforced by a body of infantry, he 
(General Stoneman) could not only accomplish what was 
expected of him, but do much essential service for the 
general cause. Instead of being reinforced as requested, 
one regiment after another was taken from him, until he 
was left alone with the one above referred to. In passing 
down to make his reports, General Stoneman also noticed 
that between him and the main army there was an in- 
terval of quite four miles, which was left wholly unguarded 
in any form, no pickets even being there. Impressed 
with the peril in which the right wing of our army was 
left. General Stoneman urged at head-quarters that such 
exposure be remedied. No notice whatever being taken 
of his suggestions, he went to a division commander 
whose forces lay so near that he could readily supply, and 
urged him to supply the perilous deficiency. After re- 
peated solicitations to do so, this officer replied that if 
General Stoneman would attend to his own duties, other 
Generals would care for theirs. Thus matters were left 
until, finally, Longstreet and Jackson's forces were united 
against the single corps of General Porter, on the north 
side of that stream, before our commanders were at all 
aware of the presence of an enemy in that vicinity, the 
forces under Longstreet passing through the unguarded 
interval above referred to. We are indebted for the 
above information to Rev. L. C. Matlack, chaplain of the 
Illinois 8th Cavalry. Such fac s in connexion with the 
early exposure of Keyes and Heintzelman on the south 
side of this stream, palpably indicate the reckless care- 
lessness with which our aftairs were managed under the 
command of General McClellan. 



104 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

The seven days' fight, and the cowardly flight. 

On the 26th June General McClellan awoke to a dis- 
tinct consciousness that the Confederate army was divided 
into two parts, and located at a distance of more than 
twenty miles from each other : the one part, as it turned 
out, consisting of the divisions of Huger and Magruder, 
lying between him and Richmond ; and the other, and by 
far the greater and most important part, consisting of the 
divisions of Jackson, Ewell, Longstreet, and the two Hills, 
on the north of the Chickahominy, and about to fall with 
crushing force upon General McCall and the single corps 
of General Porter, — in all, about 27,000 strong. Now 
was the golden opportunity for our "Young Napoleon." 
The enemy was in the precise condition in which all wise 
and energetic commanders desire to find antagonists. 
Here lay our army, 115,000 strong, between the divided 
parts of the enemy's forces, and one part, June 27th, in 
inseparable collision with Porter's corps, and at but a few 
miles from our main army, nearly go, 000 strong. Suppose 
that, early in the morning, June 27th, two corps of our army 
had been passed over to the north side of the Chicka- 
hominy with orders that as soon as the battle was fully 
joined between the Confederates and General Porter, said 
corps should participate themselves upon the enemy. The 
certain result undeniably would have been the utter rout 
and capture of this one part of the Confederate army. 
The other part, and with it Richmond, would then have 
been at our mercy. There Is not a commander of ordi- 
nary capacity and energy on earth who would not, under 
the circumstances, have promptly adopted the measures 
above indicated. The stupid inactivity of McClellan 
on that occasion is an exception in the history of war ; 
an advantage being put into his hands, of which no 
other General in the history of the world is known to have 
neglected. 

Equally stupid and cowardly was his order for a flight 
of his whole army on the next day. The battle of the 
27th had revealed the fact that a force which had been 
held at bay by less than 30,000 men for nearly a whole 
day, a force exhausted by long marches and two days' 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. IO5 

fighting, and this with their ammunition nearly expended, 
could have made no effective resistance to two of our army 
corps sent over from the south side of this stream, and 
falling upon the said forces on the morning of the 28th. 
In such an arrangement, Porter's corps would have been 
held as a reserve to aid the two on each side of the 
stream, as exigencies might have required. Suppose that 
while the annihilation of the divisions of Jackson, Ewell, 
Longstreet, and the Hills was being perfected, the two 
corps south of the Chickahominy had been attacked from 
Richmond, and even compelled to retreat over that steam, 
— preparations for such an event having been previously 
made. Our army, flushed with victory, would have been 
prepared to recross the stream and plant our flag on the 
Confederate capital at Richmond. The spectacle is horri- 
ble as it is humiliating, the spectacle of a great army 
nearly 90,000 strong standing idly by while 9,000 out of 
27,000 — the number stated by General Porter in our hear- 
ing in his defence before the court marshal — while 9,000 
of their brave associates were being ruthlessly slaughtered. 
Still more humiliating is the spectacle which facts present, 
after the withdrawal of all our forces to the south side of 
the Chickahominy, and breaking down all the bridges 
across the stream, — the spectacle of upwards of 100,000 
men retreating with all precipitation from the presence of 
25,000; the only force which, according to the highest 
Confederate authority, lay between the former and Rich- 
mond. " Had McClellan," says General Magruder, 
*' massed his whole force in column, and advanced it 
against any point of our line of battle, as was done at 
Austerlitz under similar circumstances by the greatest 
captain of any age, though the head of his column would 
have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured 
him success, and the occupation of our works about Rich- 
mond ; and consequently the city might have been his 
reward. His failure to do so is the best evidence that 
our wise commander fully understood the character of his 
opponent." The entire movements of the Confederates 
in the case under consideration are characterized by 
infinite folly and presumption, but upon the condition that 
they were made against a General known to possess the 



I06 THE AMERICAN REBELLION, 

precise characteristics which peculiarise General McClellan. 
In this case, those dispositions evince the highest wisdom. 
It does not fall in with the plan of this treatise to detail 
the facts of that retreat from the Chickahominy to Harri- 
son's Landing, with the various battles on the way; battles 
in which our forces were invariably victorious, and as in- 
variably made a precipitate retreat before a defeated foe ; 
battles in every one of which the smallness of the Con- 
federate army was made undeniably manifest, and the 
illusion of the immensity of the forces opposed to us 
passed from before every eye but that of Gen. McClellan. 
As far as he is concerned, we have no evidence ^ut one 
form, hereafter to be presented, that he is not yet under 
the vivid impression that the Confederates in his front 
were always at least 115,000 strong when he was in com- 
mand at Washington, and that their army had swelled to 
200,000 when he arrived at the Chickahominy. Such was 
his conduct during the retreat under consideration that 
such a General as the brave Kearny openly affirmed that 
the army of the Potomac was controlled by cowardice or 
treason. It induces heart-sickness to call to mind the 
amount and the uselessness of the slaughter of our brave 
men during those memorable seven days. About the 20th 
June General McClellan reported 115,102 as present for 
duty. After his whole remaining force was collected at 
Harrison's Bar, he reported, as " present for duty," 88,665 
men, — making a difference of 26,437 ' 

Causes of the failure of this campaign. 

That this campaign was a total and disastrous failure 
no one doubts. But two causes have ever been assigned 
for that failure — the failure of the Administration to grant 
the promised reinforcements, on the one hand ; and the 
indecision and incapacity of the General in command, 
on the other. In respect to these causes we invite here 
special attention to the following facts and considerations. 

I. No person can show, and no one pretends, not even 
General McClellan himself, to furnish, evidence that the 
Administration ever promised to send him a single soldier 
more than he actually took with him when he left Washing- 
ton for the Peninsula. The army of the Potomac was 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. IO7 

before him, and he was told, before he started on his 
expedition, just how many men he could take with him, 
and how many must be left behind for the defence of 
Washington ; and there was no intimation given him that 
any of the reserved forces should afterwards be sent to 
him. Nor did General McClellan furnish any new informa- 
tion of the strength of the Confederates, information 
rendering necessary the sending forward of additional 
forces drawn from those reserved. Generals Burnside and 
Butler had each a known and specific amount of force put 
under their command when they sailed on their respective 
expeditions. In case of failure, either or both of them 
might as properly have charged their failure to infidelity 
in respect to promised support, as General McClellan. 
When he knew what forces he could take with him, and the 
amount he must leave behind, then was the time, and the 
only time, for him to make his election between going for- 
ward or turning back, and giving the direction to the 
campaign which the Administration had previously advised 
and still, as he well knew, preferred. In choosing to go 
forward, and to do so with the forces entrusted to his 
command, he assumed, for himself alone, the responsibility 
of results, and deserves the deep reprobation of the nation 
for charging the disgraceful failure of his expedition to 
infidelity to its pledges on the part of the Administration, 
when that failure had but one cause, a criminal neglect 
on the part of the General in command to employ the 
forces committed to his care as he had in a special order 
promised the army, the Administration, and the nation 
that he would do. 

2. The Administration actually furnished General 
McClellan more men than he asked for before he left 
Washington. All that he asked or planned for, in addition 
to what he did take, were Blenker's division and the corps 
of General McDowell. Had all these been furnished him, 
his army, at the utmost, would not have amounted to over 
160,000 men. According to an official report, made June 
26th, the aggregate of his army consisted of 1 56,838. Add 
to this sum all that had died of disease, all that had been 
killed in battle, and all that had been taken prisoners, and 
no candid mind will estimate the forces furnished General 



I08 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

McClellan at less than from 175,000 to 180,000 men. 
The infidelity of the Administration to its promises is 
manifest in this, that it had furnished this man more than 
60,000 men over and above all it had ever pledged him, and 
about 20,000 more than he asked when he started on his 
campaign. A General that under such circumstances will 
endeavour to excuse his own inexplicable and criminal 
inactivity by a graceless endeavour to fasten upon the 
Administration which had committed to him the most 
important and honourable of all its trusts the charge of 
infidelity to its sacred pledges, we confess that we hold in 
very low esteem. 

3. Had General McDowell been finally sent down as 
intended (his only excuse for not acting at that time), 
General McClellan's relative strength against the Con- 
federates would not have been as great as it was when he 
first arrived on the Chickahominy, and his actual effective 
force would have been less than it was before his army had 
been diminished more than one-third by sickness and death. 
Had McDowell come down as intended, the effective force 
under General McClellan would have been about 155,000 
strong. When he arrived on the Chickahominy, he had 
under his immediate command upwards of 125,000 men, 
with 10,000 more within calling distance from the com- 
mands of Wool and Burnside. During the interval be- 
tween the period last designated and that in which 
McDowell was expected, the Confederate army had un- 
deniably been, from all sources, reinforced by more than 
30,000 men. Granting, then, that McDowell had come 
down, the relative strength of our army would have 
been less than it actually was when it first came into the 
presence of the enemy. 

Another important fact here presents itself. By this 
stupid and criminal inactivity nearly or quite as many 
men were lest to our army by sickness and death as could 
have been made up to it by the addition of McDowell's 
corps and the 15,000 whom Fremont brought down from 
the mountain department. On the 20th Jupe, 41,763, a 
few excepted under arrest and on special duty, were in the 
hospitals, or absent almost or quite exclusively on account 
of sickness. Of those who had been brought down by 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. ICQ 

sickness in those swamps, with little but swamp water to 
drink, it is safe to affirm that one in four had died. It is 
perfectly safe to affirm, therefore, that while lying- before 
Yorktown, and on the Chickahominy, the effective force of 
our army had been diminished by the loss of upwards of 
50,000 men. Our only son, who was there as a First Lieu- 
tenant, assured us that hardly one in three in that army who 
were reported as present for duty were, in reality, fit for any 
hard service. He himself, on the morning of the battle of 
Gaine's Mill, arose from a sick bed, and, contrary to the 
absolute prohibition of his physicians, went with his com- 
pany into the scene of carnage. There he stood with his 
men during that day, until all his fellow officers, and 40 
out of 56 of his men, were dead or disabled around him. 
As soon, after the order to retreat was given, as he had 
led those 16 survivors beyond the enemy's fire, the strength 
of the brave boy gave way, and he fell helpless upon the 
ground. He was saved from capture by the kindness of 
his Major, who placed upon his own horse his helpless asso- 
ciate. Eternal thanks for that act to that benefactor ! To 
return from this digression. We would here say that we 
regard with unspeakable reprobation the conduct of a 
General who will compel his army to remain idle for more 
than two months in a condition when it was, and could not 
but be, far more diminished by disease than by two general 
battles. Here we find, and not in the infidelity of the 
Administration, the real cause of the disastrous failure of 
this campaign, as far as the want of men is concerned. 
Take one other item, as illustrative of the above statements. 
On the 20th July, such had been General McCIellan's re- 
inforcements, his army numbered In the aggregate, accord- 
ing to the returns in the Adjutant-General's office, 158,314 
men. Of these, including the few on special duty and 
under arrest, 46,623 — more than one-third of the whole — 
were in hospital, or absent almost exclusively from sickness. 
Is it not just to charge the Administration with grave faults 
for not putting more men under the command of such a 
General ? 

4. If there was any failure on the part of the Adminis- 
tration, as we have seen that there was not, in sending 
reinforcements to General McClellan, he alone, by his 



no THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

fabulous representations of the number of men in the Con- 
federate army, is responsible for that failure. The lowest 
estimate, as we have seen, which he ever put upon the 
amount of forces confronting- him at Washington was 
115,000 men. The forces which confronted him before 
Richmond he uniformly estimated as 200,060 strong-. This 
was the estimate submitted to the President by McClellan 
and his Generals when the President visited the army at 
Harrison's Bar. Now the preservation of Washington was 
a matter of far greater importance to the nation than the 
capture of Richmond. In view of the data furnished by 
McClellan himself, and these were the only data for the 
Administration to act upon, the wonder is, not that so few, 
'but that so many reinforcements were sent to the army of 
the Potomac. Why, the question is often asked, was not 
McDowell sent down, after the retreat of Jackson down the 
Shenandoah ? If there was an army 200,000 strong before 
Richmond, every prudent military man would have con- 
cluded that Jackson's raid was made by the advanced body 
of an army of 100,000 men, that he had merely fallen back 
upon the main body, and would soon be back again in full 
force for the capture of the national capital. To send 
McDowell away under the circumstances would have been 
most presumptuous. The perpetual cry of McClellan for 
more men looks far more like a deliberate intent to uncover 
Washington to the Confederates, than the call of a prudent 
commander for what should have been granted. 

To understand rightly this whole subject, we need to 
ponder carefully here the question whether General 
McClellan did, in reality, credit his own avowed estimates 
of the number of men in the Confederate armies. To 
suppose him sincere in those estimates, I, for one, am 
compelled to regard him as one of the most stupid Generals 
that ever commanded an army ; palpable facts which were 
constantly presenting themselves always demonstrating 
the real number to be less by one half, at least, than the 
estimated one. Now facts quite significant pretty clearly 
indicate that he had one estimate for the Administration 
and the public, and quite another and different one for 
his own private use. On the 8th March, for example, he 
gave a formal estimate of the Confederate forces in his 



THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. I I I 

front as consisting of 115,000 men. According- to 
General Barnard's pamphlet on the Peninsula Campaign, 
in the council of war held six days previous to this date 
General McClellan located, **in the language of Victor, 
vol. iii., page 48, the enemy's force with such precision as 
to prove himself to have been in possession of full informa- 
tion of the enemy's disposition and strength. In that 
exhibit he figures 50,500 men as the utmost aggregate of 
the troops in his front." When at Harrison's Bar, for ex- 
ample, he proposed to move directly upon Richmond, 
provided he could be reinforced by 20,000 men ; the Con- 
federate forces there being, at the same time, estimated by 
him to have been 200,000 strong. Would he, assuming 
him not to have been demented, have seriously entertained 
the idea of moving with 120,000 men against an army 
really estimated as 200,000 strong, and such an army 
behind most formidable entrenchments, and commanded by 
such a General as Lee ? 

5. But ©ne real cause can be rationally assigned for the 
failure of this campaign — the unaccountable indecision of 
its General in command. No man had ever before been 
placed over such an army as that of the Potomac, and 
no General ever had more golden opportunities to cover 
himself and army with immortal honour, than General 
McClellan ; yet whenever such opportunity presented it- 
self, he was not ready to avail himself of it. In every 
exigency his army was too small, and that of the enemy 
too large for him to risk a battle. His mental state, 
when such opportunities occurred, is well illustrated by 
that of a certain hunter the first time he stood in the 
presence of a deer. The man had in his hands a splen- 
did rifle, and there stood a splendid buck in open day- 
light, but a few rods away, and with his broadside fully 
confronting his antagonist. As soon as the hunter saw 
the majestic animal, however, he began to soliloquise 
thus with himself: "Oh, my good fellow, if I only had 
a gun now, would I not send a blue pill through your 
sides, about the quickest? I tell you, if I only had a 
gun, how soon would I bring down that deer! " Well, 
the animal standing until his patience was quite exhausted, 
•' took up its legs " and moved off, leaving the hunter to find 



I r 2 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

his gun as best he could. So with General McClellan. 
When before Washington with 200,000 brave men around 
him, and an enemy well known to him to be not more 
than 50,500 strong, he was, as he felt, without an army. 
He must have at least 240,000 before he could safely 
advance. When before Yorktown with more than 100,000 
men, and but 1 1,000 in his front, he could not turn the posi- 
tion by a flank movement. He had not an army with which 
to make the movement. If McDowell could be sent down, 
at least Franklin's division, then he should " have a gun," 
and all would go right. As soon as Franklin did arrive, 
however, our veteran commander again forgot that he "had 
a gun," and all was quiet before Yorktown until the enemy 
chose to retire. The same farce was repeated before 
Williamsburg and on the Chickahominy. If McCall's 
division should come down, he would act. As soon as 
McCall had arrived, however, he forgot again that he had 
an army, and called for McDowell. When about to take 
final leave of the Chickahominy, he sent this querulous 
message to the President: — "Had I 20,000, or even 10,000, 
fresh troops to use to-morrow, I could take Richmond ; but 
I have not a man in reserve, and shall be glad to cover my 
retreat and save the material cindi personnel oi the army." 
When he sent this he was encircled with more than 
100,000 men, not one-third of whom had been in battle for 
a long time ; and the enemy was less than 50,000 strong 
in his rear, and wearied out at that, and not over 25,000 
strong in his front. Yes, General McClellan, when the 
occasion presented Itself, you always forgot that you "had 
a gun," and this was the sole cause of the sad failure of 
your great campaign. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GENERAL HALLECK'S MEASURES AND CAMPAIGN 
IN 3IISS0URL 

On the 12th November General Halleck assumed com- 
mand in the Western Department ; General Buell about 
the same time assuming command in Kentucky. But for 
the absolute order of the President requiring our armies 
to make a positive advance by the 22nd February, 1862, we 
have, from what was actually done, no good reason to 
suppose that had McClellan, Halleck, and Buell been con- 
tinued undisturbed in their respective commands, and had 
the war been thus protracted, all would not have remained, 
even unto this day, "quiet on the Potomac," quiet in 
Kentucky, quiet in Missouri, and all the West. That 
either of these men seriously mtended, without absolute 
compulsion from their superior in command, to move against 
the enemy, cannot be shown from any of their acts. In 
Missouri, after Hunter, with more than 40,000 men, had 
fled from the presence of Price, who had been retreating 
before General Fremont, and had in command an army 
less than 30,000 strong, Price was allowed to re-take and 
hold quiet possession of all South-western and Central Mis- 
souri, to re-occupy Lexington, burn Warsaw, and to break 
up nearly 100 miles of railroad in the southern part of the 
State, and to perpetrate untold barbarities on the defence- 
less Union citizens in all the territory referred to. In 
addition to all this, the spirit of rebellion instigated by the 
presence of Price in the State became so general that 
martial law had to be declared even in St. Louis ; and the 
burning of bridges, breaking up of railroads, and destruc- 
tion of property, became so general that an order was 

8 



114 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

issued by General Halleck to shoot any individual found 
engaged in such outrages. Yet, while Price was allowed 
to remain for long months in undisturbed possession of 
the territory of which he had repossessed himself, the 
available forces under General Halleck outnumbered those 
under General Price as three to one at least, and the 
former had merely to lead an army 40,000 strong, from 
Rolla, or on the track pursued by General Fremont, to 
Springfield, to free the State totally from all Confederate 
armies and disturbances, as previous and subsequent 
events absolutely verify. Yet, as these long months 
dragged their slow lengths along, not a movement was 
made, or projected even, to disturb the Confederate com- 
mander ; while he was recruiting and sustaining his army, 
and, through his subordinates, soldiery, and adherents, 
perpetrating untold outrages upon men, women, and chil- 
dren, for the exclusive reason that they were Unionists. 

Similar was the aspect of affairs in Kentucky, " About 
th(.' middle of September," says Mr. Pollard, " General 
Buckner, with a small force of about 4,000 men, which 
was increased the 15th October to 12,000, entered Ken- 
tucky. The enemy's force then," he adds, "was re- 
ported at the War Department at 50,000." Of the truth 
of these statements no one doubts. Forces less numerous, 
as we have before stated, advanced into Eastern and 
Western Kentucky ; their entire force on all this line, of 
nearly 300 miles in extent, always falling below 40,000 
men. Yet these small forces made themselves to appear 
to our Generals in command as most formidable hosts. 
General Sherman, who commanded in this State from the 
early part of October until the arrival of General Buell, 
assured the Secretary of War and General Thomas, when 
they visited him on the i8th of this month, that " it 
would require 200,000 men to recover and hold Kentucky." 
General Buell acted upon the truth of this estimate after 
his arrival, and, consequently, let the Confederates hold 
quiet possession of the vast territory which they had taken 
possession of. Hence it was that an army 660,000 
strong lay listlessly idle in the immediate proximity of the 
enemy, lay listlessly idle during all these fall and early 
winter months, and this while our forces everywhere out- 



gj:neral halleck s campaign in MISSOURI. 115 

numbered the Confederates more than two to one. A true 
patriot, pained, as he must be, when his country is dis- 
honoured, and afflicted in all her afflictions, is at a loss to 
determine which sentiment should predominate, contempt 
or reprobation, at such stolid immobility of Generals who 
have been entrusted with resources more than ample for 
the accomplishment of all that was expected and required 
of them. What a humiliating fact it is that the aggregate 
of all the forces which, during all these long months, con- 
fronted McClellan, Buell, and Halleck, and kept at bay an 
army upwards of 600,000 strong, did not amount in all to 
120,000 men. 

AGGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS IN MISSOURI. 

After *•• the stagnant idleness " of our great armies 
had rendered the national heart sick with the pains of 
'*hope deferred," a ripple upon the dead-level surface of 
events in Missouri excited universal attention. On the 
7th December General Pope was put in command of all 
the national troops between the Missouri and Osage rivers. 
At this time General Price was coming up from the south, 
and 5,000 volunteers were advancing from the northern 
parts of the State to join him. General Pope's first object 
was to prevent the junction of these converging forces. 
In his command he found a considerable portion of Fre- 
mont's forces, which had fallen back from Springfield. 
Uniting with these such other forces as he had in hand, 
General Pope swept in between the bodies referred to, and 
at Blackwater and other places put to flight all resisting 
Confederate forces, captured upwards of 1,50(3 prisoners, 
and large quantities of arms and supplies, prevented the 
junction of Price with his expected reinforcements, occa- 
sioned the dispersion of the latter, and Price's retreat 
south. In this raid the Union infantry marched more 
than 100 miles, and the cavalry twice as far, in five 
days. Such energetic action, with its marked results, 
occurring, as it did, amid the general stagnation of military 
affairs, secured for General Pope a very high position in 
national regard. 

As the time drew near when the order of the President 



Il6 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

rendered further inaction criminal, General Halleck, about 
the middle of February, collected at Lebanon, north-west 
of Springfield, an army composed of four divisions, com- 
manded respectively by Generals Asboth, Siegel, Davis, and 
Prentiss, all commanded by General S. R. Curtis. As Curtis 
advanced. Price fled before him, until, passing through 
Springfield and over the Arkansas line, he left Missouri 
to its fate. These facts clearly evince what would have 
occurred had Fremont, in the early part of November 1861, 
been permitted to pursue Price as Curtis pursued him in 
the middle of February 1862; and what would have 
occurred in two weeks after Halleck assumed command in 
Missouri, had he promptly recombined Fremont's forces, 
and did what Curtis afterwards performed, and that with an 
army no larger than that which Fremont led to Springfield. 

In pursuing Price over the line into Arkansas, General 
Curtis at length found himself, March 3rd, in the presence 
of forces much larger than his own, forces commanded by 
General Van Dorn, who outranked General Price. Find- 
ing himself in command of forces outnumbering those of 
General Curtis nearly as two to one. General Van Dorn 
assumed the offensive, and in successive conflicts of three 
days' continuance fought the memorable battle of Pea 
Ridge. In his advance he first struck at General Siegel, 
who was holding Bentonville, some eight to ten miles from 
General Curtis' s centre near Mattsville, on the road from 
Fayetteville to Springfield. The retreat of Siegel, sustained 
by his unconquerable Germans, constitutes one of the most 
signal events of the war. Assaulted by overwhelming odds, 
the dauntless German, sending his train ahead under escort, 
would make a stand on a favourable position, and send a 
tempest of grape and shell and bullets into the pursuing 
masses, until they would recoil in disorder. Then he would 
limber up and advance to the next position, where the first 
scene would be repeated. So he continued from morning 
until near 4 p.m., when he was reinforced by General Curtis, 
and rested for the night. 

General Curtis, as the night drew on, perfected his dis- 
positions for the conflict, which was certain to commence 
the next morning, his position being on an elevated plateau, 
cut by ravines, and cocupying a bend of a stream called 



GENERAL HALLECK S CAMPAIGN IN MISSOURI. II7 

Sugar Creek. On awaking in the morning, however, he 
found the enemy, not in his front, as he expected, but 
practically in his rear, and holding all his communications. 
Promptly changing from front to rear, he fell upon the 
Confederates before they had time to perfect their disposi- 
tions. The battle, which continued with terrible lury 
during the day, resulted with no important advantage on 
either side, the lines of the enemy being somewhat ad- 
vanced beyond where they were in the morning. All their 
forces, however, had been engaged, while one-third of ours 
had not come up. The next morning all our army was 
on the ground, and the fire, particularly of the artillery, 
was such that Van Dorn soon drew off his forces, and 
retreated in the direction of portions of the country not 
exhausted by his previous advance ; and General Curtis 
returned to Missouri. Our entire loss was 1,351 ; 701 from 
the single division of General Carr, the division which bore 
the brunt of the entire battle of the first day. While the 
Confederate loss must have been as numerous as ours, it 
was greatly enhanced by the death of Generals McCulloch 
and Mcintosh, Generals Price and Slack also being among 
the wounded. After his return to Missouri, General Curtis, 
largely reinforced, returned to Arkansas, took a zigzag 
route through the State, and finally brought up, nearly 
30,000 strong, at Helena on the Mississippi. Such ex- 
peditions in Arkansas, and elsewhere, expeditions which 
characterised the conduct of this war, we do not give in 
detail, because they were useless in themselves, and had 
no bearing upon any of the main issues. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL PLAN OF THE UNION AND CONFEDE- 
RATE AUTHORITIES FOR THE CONDUCT OF 
THE WAR. 

The immutable condition of understanding a campaign 
is a comprehension of the idea in which the plan of the 
campaign had its origin. The aim of the Confederate 
authorities was to protect their territory against the 
invasions of the Unionists. The aim of the Union au- 
thorities was to restore the unity of all our States by sup- 
pressing the Rebellion in the States which constituted the 
Confederacy. In respect to the end proposed, each party 
had its idea in regard to the plan by which that end 
should be accomplished. We have now arrived at a stage 
in our discussions where we can understand and appreciate 
the original plan of the Confederate, on the one hand, and 
that of Union authorities on the other. To a consider- 
ation of these plans, their merits and demerits included, 
very special attention is invited. 

Original plan of the Confederates. 

The original plan of the Confederates is quite manifest, 
and may be very readily comprehended. It was to make 
the border slave States, such as Maryland, Northern and 
Western Virginia, Kentucky, Northern Arkansas, and 
Missouri, the battle-ground of the war. The fundamental 
element of the original idea was the capture of Washing- 
ton, and making it the centre of operations east of the 
Alleghanies. Failing in this, their plan was to keep all 
military operations as far north and west of Richmond Is 
possible. The original plan in regard to Washington as 
manifest in the early attempts of the Confederates, and in 



GENERAL PLAN FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. IIQ 

the successive invasions of Pennsylvania and Maryland by 
General Lee. In view of the above suggestions, we can 
understand the principles on which the invasion of Kentucky 
was made, together with the movements of General Price 
and his associates In Arkansas and Missouri. This plan had 
but two features worthy of commendation — the rendering 
the army of General Lee the central force of the Confede- 
racy, and the securing the command of the Cumber- 
land, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers, by means of the 
fortifications of Donelson, Henry, Columbus, and Island 
No. 10. Had the army which invaded Kentucky expended 
all its strength in rendering Cumberland Gap impassable 
to our armies, and thus secured Eastern Tennessee from 
invasion, and in rendering Forts Donelson and Henry 
and the other fortifications impregnable, most essential 
service would have been done to the Confederate cause 
As it was, that invasion turned out to be a great calamity 
to that cause. The entire Confederate plan was, in such 
particulars as the following, fundamentally defective. 

Fundamental defects in the Confedtrate plan. 

1. It rendered their line so extended that it could not 
but have been weak at every point, and strong nowhere, 
and thus always liable to be broken at essential points, 
leaving their armies to be destroyed in detail. Think of 
an army broken up into parts, and those parts located at 
unsupporting distances on a line extending from the sea- 
board, through Virginia, Kentucky, Northern Arkansas, 
and Western Missouri as far north as the Missouri river ; 
and think of such dispositions made as the best means 
of defending the Confederacy from the invasions of the 
Union armies. Had it been the object of the Confederate 
authorities to have ensured the collapse of the Rebellion at 
the (earliest period possible, they could not have adopted 
a plan better adapted to this end than the one under con- 
sideration. 

2. This plan located the main Confederate forces at 
the greatest distances from their own proper centres, and 
brought them into immediate proximity to the Union 
armies, which always outnumbered their antagonists a^ 
two to one at least. Thus, wnen on a line so extended 



120 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

that they could be strong nowhere, the Confederates were 
always exposed to be broken up, and destroyed in detail, 
by the least possible efforts on the part of the Union forces, 
on the simple condition that our armies were skilfully and 
energetically employed. 

3. In respect to life and treasure, this plan was the 
most expensive, for the conduct of the war, that could 
have been adopted by the Confederate authorities. For 
the reasons here indicated, armies should always be kept as 
near as possible to their bases of supply. The Confede- 
rates, in the worst form conceivable, reversed this principle, 
and that to the fatal injury of their cause. The defects 
of this plan are too palpable to require further elucidation. 

The plan which the Confederates should have adopted. 

The plan which the Confederate authorities should 
have adopted, the one the like of which they would have 
adopted had the highest wisdom determined their counsels, 
Oiay be stated in few words. It embraces, among others, 
the following elements : — 

1. Having rendered their seaboard at most essential 
points perfectly secure, points such as Willmington, 
Charlestown, Savannah, and New Orleans, they should 
have rendered their fortresses at Donelson, Henry, 
Columbus, Island No. 10, and other points on the Cum- 
berland, Tennessee, and Mississippi, as nearly impregnable 
as possible ; rendering by such means their exterior and 
interior secure from invasion by means of water communi- 
cations. 

2. In the interior, they should have fortified but a very 
few, and these fundamental strategic, points, such as 
Richmond, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville; and 
these should have been most strongly fortified, the 
fortified posts being permanently occupied by as few 
men as possible, forces always being in readiness to be 
thrown into any one of them, as exigencies might require. 

3. With the exceptions indicated, the entire military 
power of the Confederacy should have been combined into 
two central, and ever movable, armies; the one located in 
Virginia, covering Richmond, and the other in Tennessee, 
in the vicinity of Nashville. Both of these armies should 



GENERAL PLAN FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 121 

have been rendered exceeding strong* in field artillery, 
and overpoweringly so in cavalry. 

4. In every advance of the Union armies, the object 
should have been to have drawn them as far as possible 
into the interior, and away from their own proper centres 
and bases of supply. While their advance should have 
been embarrassed by every possible means, in breaking up 
of roads, breaking down of bridges, etc., and while resist- 
ance should have been offered at every favourable point, 
and decisive battles fought but when and where success was 
most probable, the cavalry should have been omnipresent 
in front, on the flanks, and in the rear of the invading 
force, capturing stragglers, cutting off supplies, and break- 
ing up communications. 

5. At a point selected and proposed beforehand, and 
at which all possible forces had been collected, a general 
battle should have been fought, and that under circum- 
stances in which a defeat of the invading army would 
have ensured its destruction. 

Had the war been carried on upon such principles by 
the Confederacy, the Union armies being guided by such 
blank stupidity as did command them, 1 do not see how 
the union of the States ever could have been restored. 

The plan of the Union authorities. 

The plan of the Union authorities, as far as they had 
any, may now be stated in few words. It embraced, 
among others, the following items: — 

1. That the enemy should be everywhere confronted 
by superior forces, and on a line parallel to, and co-exten- 
sive with, his own. As the Confederate main line extended 
from the seaboard through Virginia, east and west, 
through Kentucky, Northern Arkansas, and Missouri, as 
above stated, our forces were to confront theirs over a 
line of corresponding length. 

2. Our advance upon the enemy was to be simultaneous 
on this whole line. This evidently was the plan agreed 
upon by Generals McClellan, Buell, and Halleck, prior to 
their assumption of their respective commands. Hence 
"all was quiet on the Potomac," and on the whole line, 
because the time for concerted action had not arrived. 



122 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

The 22nd February, for the reason that It was Washington's 
birthday, was fixed upon by the President for the grand 
and simultaneous advance. This idea of a simultaneous 
advance on a line of immense extent obtained with the 
Union authorities throughout the war. After General 
Grant, for example, assumed supreme command, it was, 
as we shall see hereafter, agreed in a council of war that 
all our armies should rest during the winter, and on the 
opening of spring should, on a line some 1,500 miles 
in extent, move simultaneously upon the enemy. As our 
line was to be longer than that of the Confederates, our 
forces were to draw round theirs and crush them all to- 
gether. This was the "Anaconda Idea" of which so 
much was everywhere said during the first years of the 
war, and which had its origin with General Scott. 

3. Another element of this plan, the only additional 
feature of it to which we now refer, was that as far and 
as fast as the enemy was driven back, the territory ac- 
quired should be permanently occupied by our armies, 
and this with such forces as to render future insurrections 
and invasions impossible. Hence it was that after we 
had redeemed Missouri and Kentucky, and taken posses- 
sion of Tennessee and portions of Louisiana, Virginia 
east and west, the Carolinas, and Florida, quite two-thirds 
of the 1,000,000 of men we had in the field were employed 
in doing nothing else than guarding the immense extent 
of territory referred to. 

Essential defects in this plan. 

No plan conceivable is more utterly defective than that 
above indicated. One of the best known principles of 
weakness in war is operation upon a widely extended line ; 
while the known condition of strength is concentration of 
force so as, in the language of Napoleon, " to be the 
strongest at the essential point." An army 100,000 strong 
distributed on a line like that occupied by the Confederates 
in Kentucky and Northern Tennessee, would be readily 
routed by a concentrated and ably commanded force of 
one-half their number. Nothing, also, can be more absurd 
than the idea of a simultaneous advance of half a mill'on 
or a mill-on of men on a line more than a thousand miles 



GENERAL PLAN FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 1 23 

in extent, and especially to determine the time of such 
movement by the day on which some celebrated man 
happened to have been born. The time and the form of 
army movements should always be determined, as all 
strategists well understand, by the circumstances of each 
particular case. Circumstances may present themselves 
absolutely demanding the prompt movement of one army 
upon an enemy, and as absolutely require another army, 
500 or 1,000 miles distant, to defer, for a time, any such 
movement. The "Anaconda Idea" has place in regard 
to single armies, and only thus in cases where a vast army 
moves upon a far inferior one. Nothing is more absurd, 
however, than the idea of drawing an army round half a 
continent, and after driving the enemy in upon a common 
centre, to crush them there. It was one thing, for example, 
for Napoleon to draw his army around that of General 
Mack, and coop it up and capture it in Ulm. It would 
have been quite a different affair had he attempted in a 
similar manner to encircle the whole kingdom of Prussia, 
and coop up and crush all its armies at once. When 
General Scott would make a circle with his hand, thumb, and 
fingers, and add, " Thus let us encircle the Confederates, 
and then crush them," suddenly clenching his fist to illus- 
trate the idea, he seemed to those who did not duly con- 
sider the facts to have announced a very sublime and 
practicable conception. Yet, as we stated in the paper read 
before President Lincoln, our anaconda, when stretched 
around the whole Confederacy, would be found to be a 
miserable tapeworm, that would be broken into a thou- 
sand fragments the first wrench it should make. It was 
Aus that, from beginning to end, the conduct of this war 
was under the control of a totally false idea. Extension of 
line on the part of an invading army has all the elements 
of weakness and exposure to defeat, by breaking the line 
and destroying the dissevered parts in detail, that a similar 
line has for defensive operations. Nor is it possible to 
conceive of a worse policy in war than that which obtains 
when armies are divided and scattered for the occupancy 
of acquired territory, while the main armies of the enemy 
are in the field. It was for this reason mainly that we 
were necessitated to bring into the field at least 2,500,000 



124 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

men to put down this Rebellion ; whereas an able General 
would have accomplished this end in less than one-third 
the time which we spent in doing it, and with one-fifth of 
the forces which we employed. 

The pla7i which should have been adopted by our military 

authorities. 

We are now prepared to indicate distinctly the essen- 
tial elements of the plan for the conduct of the war, the 
plan which the highest wisdom required that our military 
authorities should have adopted. War, in all its forms, 
is, in reality, a conflict of military forces, and always ends 
when the military force of one enemy succumbs to that of 
the other. Hence a wise General contemplates and deter- 
mines all dispositions and movements as a means to one 
exclusive end — the destruction of the military power of his 
opponent. Fortresses are besieged or passed by, and 
territory is occupied or not, with exclusive reference to 
this one end. The Germans, for example, stopped with a 
great force to besiege Metz, because the central army of 
France was within those fortifications. Had the French 
escaped, as they intended to have done, but a very few, if 
any, men would have been left behind by the invaders to 
besiege the place. The Crown Prince moved away from 
Paris when the city lay at his mercy, because the second 
army of France was concentrated at Sedan. With every 
wise commander, the locality of the main army of the 
enemy is his centre. Such commander, also, always 
distinguishes between what may be called the main and 
the mere ^Y^^ issues of war. With Wellington and Blucher, 
for example, the main issue of their campaign, as they well 
and wisely understood, lay, not at Waver, but at Waterloo. 
Hence, but very few forces were left at the former place, 
while all their main ones were concentrated at the latter. 
Nothing is more unwise than the idea that wherever any 
forces of the enemy may happen to be located, there he 
must be sought out and assaulted. 

Had either of our Commanders-in-Chief been a great 
strategist, he would have perceived at once that the soul 
and strength of the Confederacy lay, not in its seaports 
or inland fortified places, but in its armies, and that the 



GENERAL PLAN FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 1 25 

end of all his dispositions and movements should be, not 
the capture of Willmington, Charlestown, Savannah, Rich- 
mond, Vicksburg-, Corinth, Chattanooga, or Atlanta, not to 
take or hold territory, but to crush out the military power 
of the said Confederacy. He would also have perceived, 
with equal distinctness, that that war had but two main or 
central issues — the main army commanded by General 
Lee, the army the mission of which was to defend Virginia 
and the Carolinas, on the one hand ; and the army com- 
manded by General Johnston and his predecessors, the 
army whose mission was to defend the Confederate States 
lying between the Savannah and the Mississippi rivers, on 
the other. Hence he would have made no raids into 
North Carolina, Florida, the interior of Louisiana, Texas, 
and Arkansas. All his forces, on the other hand, would 
have been mainly centralized into two great armies for the 
crushing out of the two Confederate armies referred to. 
Under such a commander, furnished with an army 500,000 
strong, the war would not have continued six months after 
our forces were put into the field, inasmuch as the entire 
Confederacy would have collapsed at once as soon as 
these two armies were destroyed. In the conceptions of 
our Commanders-in-Chief, the power of the Confederacy 
lay, not in its armies, but in Richmond, Willmington, 
Charlestown, Savannah, Vicksburg, Corinth, Chattanooga, 
Atlanta, and in its vast territories ; and that their great 
mission was to capture these places, and take piecemeal 
and hold the Confederate territory. Hence the long con- 
tinuance of this war, and the unexampled expenditure of 
life and treasure in bringing it to a close. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY, AND EVENTS 
WHICH FOLLOWED. 

Defeat of Marshall and Crittenden in Eastern Kentucky. 

In the early part of the year 1862 some events occurred in 
Eastern Kentucky which deserve a passing notice. Colonel 
Garfield, with two regiments of infantry and a squadron of 
cavalry, assaulted Humphrey Marshall near Prestonburg, 
Eloyd county, and put to flight the General and his force, 
2,500 strong, driving them into Virginia, where Marshall 
dropped into a long oblivion. About the same time, 
January 17th, General Thomas, at Mill Spring, in Wayne 
county, was attacked by greatly superior Confederate 
forces commanded by General Crittenden. After a terrible 
resistance, Crittenden's forces were totally routed, and on the 
following night escaped capture by crossing the Cumber- 
land, leaving behind them, in addition to two previously 
abandoned, ten guns, with caissons and many small arms, 
nearly 1,500 horses and mules, with tents, blankets, and all 
the material of their army. Our loss was 39 killed and 
207 wounded. The Confederates lost 192 killed, 62 
wounded, and 89 unhurt prisoners, aside from the many 
wounded which they carried from the field. General Zolli- 
coffer, shot by Colonel Fry, was left dead upon the field. 
The conduct of this battle marked out General Thomas 
as one of the best Generals in our army ; and its results 
were the disappearance of the Confederates from Eastern 
Kentucky, and the full preparation for the opening of the 
campaign in the middle and western part of the State. 

The campaign in Middle and Eastern Kentucky, and in 
the States farther south. 

We have already referred to the occupancy on the part 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. 1 27 

of the Confederates of Bowling- Green, Forts Donelson and 
Henry, Columbus, and Island No. lo. These constituted 
the Confederate line after their discomfiture in Eastern 
Kentucky. No campaign was ever better planned than 
was that of the Union commanders for breaking this line, 
and putting the enemy to rout. The plan embraced 
these simple elements : first of all, to capture the two 
central positions at Donelson and Henry, and then to 
strike, on the right or left, at the enemy in Bowling Green 
and Columbus, as occasion might require. The opening 
of the campaign was entrusted to General Grant, in com- 
mand of the land forces, amounting to about 30,000 men, 
and to the ironclad fleet, got in readiness at the close of 
January 1862, and commanded by Commodore A. H. 
Foote, of whom Mr. Prentiss truly said that " in all this 
nation there is no better soul than the soul of our 
Foote." 

We stop here for a moment to answer the inquiry as to 
the originator of this plan. That the nation owes the fleet 
which did so much service to the Union cause to General 
Fremont, no one doubts. Two considerations render it 
evident that to him, also, the nation is indebted for the 
original idea of the plans under consideration. In the 
first place, in a communication dated September 8th, 1861, 
and addressed to the President, General Fremont gave in 
detail the substance of this identical plan. In the next 
place. General Smith, who originally suggested the plan to 
General Grant and Commodore Foote, and aided them in 
fully developing it, affirmed that he was indebted to General 
Fremont, when the latter was in command of the Western 
Department, for the idea. When history shall do full 
justice to facts and men, it will be universally acknow- 
ledged that General John C. Fremont was the only real 
strategist who had command of any great department 
during the progress of this war ; that he only evinced the 
capacity to look over and comprehend a vast field of 
operations, to determine all the means and appliances 
requisite on such a field for the production ot the best 
results, and then to plan a vast campaign and determine 
the dispositions and combine the movements of a great 
army so as to ensure the results referred to. 



128 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

To give efficiency to operations, General Halleck 
assigned to General Grant the territory east of the Missis- 
sippi and west of the Cumberland river, and to General 
Buell the territory east of the river last named. Commo- 
dore Foote would, by this arrangement, co-operate with 
General Grant. 

When Generals Grant, Smith, and Commodore Foote 
had fully developed their plan for the capture of Fort 
Henry and Donelson, they communicated the said plan 
to General Halleck, with an urgent request for permission 
to make the contemplated movement at once. After a 
tedious delay, no answer being received, a joint communi- 
cation from the individuals above named was sent, and 
leave was obtained for the movement desired. As a means 
of deceiving the Confederates, threatening demonstrations 
were first made in the direction of Columbus, and other 
points, when the united fleet and army sailed up the Ten- 
nessee river to assault Fort Henry. The army, with the 
expectation of advancing by land and investing the fort- 
ress, disembarked several miles below it ; while the fleet, 
advancing with much caution, came within firing distance. 
After a cannonade of several hours. General Tilghman, 
commander of the fort, surrendered at discretion, having 
previously sent the most of his men to Fort Donelson. 
In the fight a 24-pound shot pierced the ironclad Essex, 
burst her starboard boiler, and filled the vessel with 
burning steam, killing her two pilots, and seriously scald- 
ing her commander. Captain W. 1). Porter, and 40 of 
his men. In the rest of the fleet, but one was killed, 
and 9 wounded. Among the prisoners taken were the 
General and his staff, 143 men, with barracks and tents 
and other material for the accommodation of 15,000 men. 
The most important of all the captures was the fort itself, 
securing to us, as the event proved, the uninterrupted 
navigation of the river for many hundred miles. In the 
capture of this fort, the army took no part ; and the manner 
in which the ironclads withstood the fire of the 12 heavy 
guns from the two batteries at the bank of the river, one 
of these guns being a lo-inched columbiad, three of them 
64-pounders, and the rest 3 2 -pounders, in addition to the 
heavy guns of the fort, and the field batteries of the 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. 1 29 

garrison, evinces most clearly the perfection with which 
they were built. 

As the army had taken no part in this conflict, and 
as Fort Donelson, some twelve miles distant, was a far 
more important position than that just captured, General 
Grant most wisely determined to move at once upon the 
former place. Crossing over the Tennessee General 
Smith's division, and moving with this directly upon the 
road leading thither, he completed the investment of the 
fort on the land side ; while the fleet, with the rest of his 
army, passed down the Tennessee and up the Cumberland 
river, to reinforce and aid the division referred to. The 
force occupying the fort has been variously estimated at from 
13,000 to 18,000 men, all under the command of General 
John B. Floyd. The force under General Grant, in addi- 
tion to the armed fleet, amounted, according to the best 
authorities, to from 30,000 to 40,000 men. If anybody can 
discover any material fault in the plan or conduct of the 
assault, either on the land or water side, they are possessed 
of more wisdom than the author of this treatise. In their 
advance, the ironclads, after they had driven most of the 
enemy's gunners from their batteries, were obliged to 
retire for repairs. On the land side, the fight having 
been continued from the 12th to the night of the 15th 
February, General Buckner, left in command by the flight 
of Floyd, who took with him some 1,500 men on two 
steamboats, General Forest having also escaped with 
about 600 cavalry, — General Buckner on the i6th surren- 
dered at discretion. The Confederate loss in prisoners, 
including some 2,000 killed and wounded, approached 
10,000 men, with 40 pieces of artillery, and a large amount 
of horses, mules, and stores of various kinds. Our loss 
in killed and wounded, though not accurately reported, 
must have been quite as large as that of the Confederates, 
we having been the assailing party. We would here re- 
mark that Pollard gives the Confederate loss in prisoners 
at 5,079, giving the number of regiments, and the number 
of men in each regiment. In this he may not have included 
the wounded. As we have no official statement to rebut 
this, the correctness of Pollard's statement remains un- 
disputed. 

9 



I30 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

The situation^ and the course which events should have taken, 
after the fall of Forts Henry and Do?ielson. 

By the fall of the forts above designated, the Confede- 
rate army in Kentucky was dissevered and divided into 
two widely separate parts, the one located at Bowling 
Green, and the other at Columbus, with the rivers Cum- 
berland and Tennessee, and our fleet and army which had 
captured the forts, between the dissevered parts referred 
to. South of Bowling Green, and directly in the rear of 
General A. S. Johnston, who now commanded at this place, lay 
Nashville, in an almost totally defenceless state, and con- 
taining, it is said, provision and stores for the Confederate 
army, amounting in value to some ;$ 10,000,000. West of 
Fort Henry lay Columbus, which could have been invested 
on the land side by the army of General Grant, crossing 
over from the vicinity of said fort, and on the water side 
hy the fleet. What any wise commander in the position 
then occupied by General Halleck would have proposed 
to himself, would have been the capture of the two Con- 
federate armies under consideration, and especially that 
under General Johnston. As a means to this end, the fleet 
with General Grant's army on board, and reinforcements 
sent after them, would have been ordered to proceed at 
once to Nashville, and, having captured the city, to have 
faced Johnston in his retreat south, with General Buell 
pressing upon his rear. Johnston having been crushed 
between these two masses, Columbus, if not previously 
abandoned, should have been invested as above indicated. 
Nothing short of, or diverse from, these two results would 
any commander of common judgment have proposed to 
himself; and none can doubt the full practicability of such 
a plan. 

The course which events did take in the circumstances. 

The plan above indicated, the plan by which all pos- 
sible fruits of prior advantages might have been reaped, was 
the identical one proposed by Commodore Foote, General 
Grant, and their advisers. Commodore Foote, while tarry- 
ing with his brother at Cleveland, Ohio, after his wound, 
expressed the deepest reprobation that those who advised 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. I31 

were not permitted to carry out this plan. Such a course 
on the part of the Union fleet and army was actually 
expected by the Confederates. Every possible effort, as 
soon as the fall of Donelson was known, was made to 
remove from the city all the materials and supplies desig*- 
nated. Instead of ordering- what the circumstances re- 
quired, our commander retained the main portion of the 
fleet, and of the army of General Grant, where they were ; 
sent forward Commodore Foote with two gunboats up the 
Cumberland as far as Clarksville ; while General Smith with 
his division moved by land to the same place, and while 
General Buell, General O. M. Mitchel in advance, was sent 
after General A. S. Johnston, who had retreated from 
Bowling Green. To the least reflecting mind it must be 
perfectly evident that had it been the specific design of our 
Generals to induce General Johnston to retreat, and to 
render that retreat perfectly safe, measures better adapted 
to that end could, by no possibility, have been adopted. 
The result was as might have been anticipated. Johnston 
did make a perfectly safe retreat, all the Confederate stores 
both at Bowling Green and Nashville having been pre- 
viously removed or destroyed ; and passing through the 
latter place, assumed a new position and concentrated his 
forces at Corinth, Mississippi, a position on the Tennessee 
and Charlestown railroad east of Memphis, and a few miles 
west of the point where the Tennessee river turns from its 
western in a northern direction. To reach this point from 
Bowling Green requires a six weeks' march over muddy 
roads of more than 300 miles. On the 24th February our 
forces took possession of Nashville, where General Buell 
arrived soon after, and quartered his army around the city. 
From Nashville General Mitchel was sent, with a force in- 
adequate to any permanent and important results, down 
into Alabama, where he did considerable damage to the 
Confederate interests, capturing Huntsville and other 
places, and manifesting such energy that he could not be 
endured in Buell's command, and was hence transferred to 
Port Royal, S. C, where he died October 20th. 

After a few days' rest. General Grant, with his main 
army reinforced to nearly or quite 40,000 men, passed by 
land over to the Tennessee river, where his troops were taken 



132 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

on board the fleet, and conveyed finally, no notice being" 
taken of the Confederates at Columbus and vicinity, to a 
place called Pittsburg Landing, a place located on the 
west side of the river about twenty miles north-east from 
Corinth, where the Confederate forces under General 
Johnston were concentrated. 

The battle of Shiloh^ or Pittsburg Landing. 

At this place occurred, April 6th and 7th, a scene, the 
battle bearing each of the above designations, — a scene for 
the leading characteristics of which, with the preceding 
facts, no impartial historian can offer a single excuse or 
apology for the General in command of our army. That 
army, it must be borne in mind, had lain in this position 
from March 12th to April 6th, a position but about twenty 
miles distant from the central western army of the Con- 
federacy, an army commanded by one of their ablest 
Generals, and who was concentrating his forces at Corinth 
to resist and repel the invasion of which the army of 
General Grant was the advanced force. No army was 
ever in a position where it was more likely to be assaulted 
by superior numbers than was ours in the circumstances 
under consideration. General Johnston would deserve the 
contempt of the world, if he had not taken advantage of 
the opportunity which the advanced and isolated position 
of our army presented, to strike a crushing blow before 
the expected reinforcements should arrive. No com- 
mander, therefore, had more constraining motives to so 
fortify his position as to render it as secure as possible 
against assault, and to keep such a perpetual and sharp 
outlook as to render surprise impossible. Nor was there 
ever a position which could have been rendered impregnable 
with less labour, or more readily guarded against sudden 
and unexpected assault. The country around was an 
almost unbroken wilderness, and covered with such a 
thick growth of underbrush that, in a few hours, the 
approach of the enemy, except by the open roads, might 
have been rendered nearly or quite impossible, while a few 
batteries judiciously located would have effectively barred 
all approach on said roads. The absolutely known princi- 
ples of the science of war, as well as its most common and 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. I33 

invariable usag-es, demanded of our Greneral in command 
every precaution against surprise and successful assault. 

What was done in these very peculiar and perilous 
circumstances ? Everything, we answer, to render sur- 
prise, defeat, and capture most practicable, and nothing- 
whatever to prevent such a catastrophe. In front, as all 
witnesses and historians fully agree, not a single entrench- 
ment or abatis was raised, nor a single tree or shrub in 
the surrounding forests and groves cut down to impede or 
1 hinder the approach of the enemy in any direction what- 

ever. The divisions of the army were also as carelessly 
distributed as possible. " Sherman's divisions," says an 
eyewitness, the correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, 
! and his testimony is undisputed, " extended from the ex- 

treme right to extreme left of our line, while four other 
I divisions had been crowded in between, as they arrived." 

j The state in which the enemy actually found our army on 

the morning of April 6th is thus very correctly and im- 
'1 pressively described by Mr. Greeley : — 

' *' Though the vicinity of the enemy was notorious, not 

I an entrenchment nor defence of any kind, not even an 

* abatis, here so easily made, covered and protected our 

; front ; no reconnoitering parties were thrown forward to 

watch for and report an advance of the enemy ; and even 
the pickets were scarcely a musket-shot from the tents of 
our foremost regiments; some of which, it was asserted, had 
not even been provided with ammunition, though the woods, 
scarcely a mile away, had suddenly been found swarm- 
ing with Rebel scouts and sharp-shooters in such strength 
as to forbid observation on our part. Low but ominous 
whispers and meaning glances of exultation among the 
Rebel civilians in our rear had already given indications 
that a blow was about to be struck; and alarmed Unionists 
had sought the tents of our Generals with monitions of 
danger, which were received with sneering intimations 
that every one should stick to his trade. General Grant 
was at Savannah, superintending the reception of sup- 
plies. Such was the condition of our forces on Saturday 
evening, April 5th." The utter neglect of all precautions, 
universal in all well-regulated armies, to prevent surprise, 
was a matter of utter astonishment to the Confederates. 



134 THE AMERICAN REBELLION 

Under such circumstances, it is not at all surprising that 
that night the enemy, more than 40,000 strong, their pre- 
sence not being even suspected, encamped within less than 
four miles of our lines, — that, by a very early advance, 
those lines were surprised when our men were just en- 
gaged in dressing or getting ready their breakfasts ; that 
when General Grant arrived upon the field at about 8 
a.m., his army was, in reality, beaten ; that by 12 
o'clock the camps of all the divisions of our army but one 
were in the enemy's hands, and two out of five divisions 
were driven back, and the other three routed ; that, in the 
language of Mr. Greeley, "at half-past 4 p.m., our sur- 
prised but over-matched army, apart from Lew. Wallace's 
division, had been crowded back into a semicircle of three 
or four hundred acres immediately around, but rather to 
the left of, the Landing ; " that when this position was 
assaulted at 6 o'clock, nothing saved our army from utter 
rout or capture but the timely arrival of Lew—Wallace 
and one of General Buell's divisions, together with the aid 
of two gunboats ; and that nothing but the aid of G^,neral 
Buell's army, which came up in force during the night, 
enabled our forces to drive the enemy off from the field on 
the next day; while nearly 15,000 men, in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, were lost on our side, and upwards of 10,000 
on the part of the Confederates, whereas no battle at all 
would, in all probability, have been fought but for the 
reckless carelessness of our General and his subordinates 
in command. We should add here that the death of 
General Johnston, which occurred about 2 p.m. of the 
first day, prevented a more vigorous subsequent advance 
of the Confederates on that day. On each of these days 
our commanders and their men did all that could have 
been done to prevent defeat, rout, and capture, and to en- 
sure the victory which was finally gained. Such facts, 
however, offer no excuse whatever for the reckless dis- 
regard of all the prudential measures which devolve 
most sacredly upon all commanders of armies, or free 
them from full responsibility for the lives and limbs of 
thousands of brave men sacrificed through criminal neglect 
of known duty. There is not a military power in Europe 
which would, for a single day, continue in command a 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. 1 35 

General who had done, and neglected to do, what our 
commander did during the three weeks which preceded 
this battle. 

The following extract from an article on Sherman's 
"Memoirs," an article which appeared in the Washington 
Capital, deserves a place in history, as throwing clear 
light upon the criminal conduct of Generals Grant, Sher- 
man, and others, — conduct which occasioned the slaughter 
of about 15,000 of our brave men. History does not state 
the actual condition of some of those men in that Bachana- 
lian feast referred to in the extract which follows : — 

" The unnecessary slaughter of thousands, that sent 
desolation to householders throughout the land, was due 
to reckless incapacity of the General in command. The 
most striking illustration of this is to be found in his treat- 
ment of the battle of Shiloh. While advancing on to that 
fatal locality, separating his force so as to allow the enemy 
to attack it in detail and to make a disaster inevitable, 
placing the advance on the wrong side of the river in the 
presence of the enemy, we come upon the following para- 
graph, page 226, vol. i., which reads: — 'Among my 
colonels I had a strange character — Thomas Worthington, 
colonel of the 46th Ohio. He was a graduate of West 
Point, of the class of 1827 ; was therefore older than 
General Halleck, General Grant, or myself, and claimed 
to know more of war than all of us put together. In 
ascending the river he did not keep his place in the 
column, but pushed on and reached Savannah a day before 
the rest of my division. When I reached that place I found 
that Worthington had landed his regiment, and was flying 
about giving orders as though he were Commander-in- 
Chief. I made him get back to his boat, and gave him to 
understand that he must hereafter keep his place.' This 
is all. The ' strange character ' thus briefly described 
comes and goes in this mysterious manner, so far as the 
Memoirs are concerned. The reader unacquainted with 
the ugly events that followed wonders why the ' strange 
character ' is introduced at all. But the mystery vanishes 
before those who know that Old Tom of the 46th Ohio was 
thereafter to be an ugly shadow, haunting through life the 
hero of these lame reminiscences. Old Colonel Tom was 



136 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

a queer character, but this was not his worst feature — he 
was an ugly customer, who did know something- of war, and 
knew that Sherman and Grant were pushing their divisions 
into the jaws of a bloody defeat. The night before the 
battle, so called, of Shiloh, he found himself on the ex- 
treme right, and going into camp, found that no precaution 
whatever was taken against a surprise, and, uneasy and 
restless, he went to head-quarters to remonstrate. He 
found head-quarters under the influence of a hearty dinner 
and utterly oblivious to all danger. Returning, this 
' strange character,' who thought he knew so much of war, 
threw out his own pickets, and constructed, as well as he 
could-, a rough breastwork. The next morning the Con- 
federates were upon them, and the only point held during 
the day and until Buell came to the relief, by the startled, 
confused, and slaughtered army, was that commanded by 
this 'strange character.' His obstinate absurdity saved all 
that was saved of that badly-handled army. But Old Tom 
had not sense enough to keep silent. He was disgustingly 
loud and offensive in his denunciations, and instead of 
being promoted for his gallant conduct, was cashiered for 
telhng the truth." 

General Pope and Commodore Foote at New Madrid and 
Island No. 10. 

The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson rendered, in 
the judgment of the Confederate commanders, Columbus 
no longer tenable. It was accordingly abandoned, and, 
under the direction of General Beauregard, one of the 
best engineers in the country, very strong fortifications, 
very heavily mounted, were erected at more favourable 
points still farther down the river, especially at Island No. 
10, New Madrid in Missouri, and Tiptonville in Ken- 
tucky. The capture of these strongholds was entrusted 
to General Pope with an army about 40,000 strong, and 
to Commodore Foote with his ironclads. This expedition 
was conducted with the same energy and skill as was that 
against the forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland. The 
first place to be assaulted was New Madrid, which was 
defended, not only by strong fortifications on the land 
side, but by formidable floating batteries or armed 



THE CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY. 1 37 

Steamers on the river side. These vessels were so located 
that they swept the whole country for several miles round, 
and rendered the retaining the fortifications, if captured, 
impracticable. Under these circumstances, four 24-pound 
size guns were sent for, and with these, March 13th, a fire, 
at 800 yards range, was opened upon the works and vessels, 
and with such power that the vessels were drawn off and 
the place surrendered on the following morning. So pre- 
cipitate had been the retreat of the enemy that very little 
of their material was taken away or destroyed, even their 
tents being left standing. Thirty-three cannon, several 
thousand small arms, and a large amount of other mate- 
rial, were left behind uninjured. 

To understand the situation now, it must be borne in 
mind that while New Madrid is about 20 miles north 
of Island No. 10, the former place is this distance farther 
down the river than the latter; the river, at the island, 
turning northward, and at the former place taking a 
directly southern course. On the capture of New Madrid, 
General Pope consequently found himself wholly destitute 
of transports to take his army in any direction, the fortifi- 
cation on the island keeping our fleet in the river above 
them. To remedy this evil, nineteen days were spent in 
cutting a canal twelve miles long across the Missouri 
peninsula, one of the wonders of engineering ; Commodore 
Foote being employed in the meantime in bombarding, 
with no decisive results, the forts on the island. By 
means of transports brought over through this canal, two 
ironclads having also passed down by the island, one in 
a thick fog and the other during a thunderstorm in the 
night, General Pope pushed across the river one division 
of his army, at a point several miles below Tiptonville, 
thus completely flanking all the Confederate fortifications 
above the point of crossing. While our commander was 
preparing, April 7th, to cross with the remainder of his 
army, the Confederates, sinking their gunboat Grampus 
and six transports, abandoned Island No. 10 and all their 
other fortified places near, and retreated eastward. General 
Pope was in time, however, to make important captures. 
In a report of the fruits of all these victories, he gives the 
following summary : — " Three generals, 273 field and 



138 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

company officers, 6,700 prisoners (troops), 123 pieces of 
heavy artillery — all of the very best character and latest 
patterns — 7,000 stand of small arms, several wharf-boat 
loads of provisions, an immense quantity of ammunition 
of all kinds, many hundred horses and mules, with wagons, 
harness, etc., are among the spoils." 

These events, while they added much to the glory of 
Commodore Foote, and elevated General Pope to a very 
high place among our Generals, spread consternation 
throughout the Confederacy. One fact is now quite evi- 
dent, namely, that had General Grant, instead of being 
prematurely sent south, been sent west to the point where 
General Pope crossed the river, and been sent there to 
co-operate with him in the capture of all forces and forti- 
fications above that point, not merely 7,000, but from 
15,000 to 20,000, prisoners would have been captured, and 
a disgraceful loss of nearly 15,000 men at Pittsburg 
Landing would have been prevented. The bloodlessness 
of the victories under consideration is one of its most 
wonderful peculiarities, less than 50 being killed and 
wounded at New Madrid, and hardly more than this 
elsewhere. 



CHAPTER IX. 

1 GENERAL HALLECK AT PITTSBURG LANDING 

AND AT CORINTH. 

About the time when General Pope and Commodore Foote 

i had completed their conquests at New Madrid and Island 

j No. 10, General Halleck left Missouri and passed up to 

( Pittsburg Landing, and assumed direct command of the 

! army, whose mission it was to seek and defeat the enemy 

I in the vicinity of Corinth. Before making an advance, he 

I awaited the arrival of General Pope, whose coming, April 

I 22nd, rendered our army concentrated at this point some- 

I what upwards of 100,000 strong. Before proceeding to 

I detail and criticise the events which did follow, we will 

• consider what a real strategist would have proposed to 

himself under the circumstances, and the means and dis- 

I positions by which he might have accomplished his plan. 

I What should have been done in the circuiJtstances then existing. 

I Immediately after the arrival of General Buell at Nash- 

ville, and General Grant at Pittsburg Landing, it became 
perfectly manifest that General Johnston had selected 
Corinth as the point where he would concentrate his main 
army for repelling the threatened invasion. What a real 
strategist would have proposed to himself would have 
been, not the driving of the enemy from this position, 
not his mere defeat, but capture there; and never was an 
enemy in a position more exposed to such a catastrophe 
than was General Johnston at the point under considera- 
tion, and never was a strategist in circumstances more 
favourable to ensure the accomplishment of his plan than 
was General Halleck at this time. By the union of Pope 



J 40 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

with Grant at Pittsburg Landing-, an army 80,000 strong 
might have been concentrated at that point By sending 
Buell down to Decatur, and uniting him with Mitchel there, 
another army 50,000 or 60,000 strong, Buell in com- 
mand, could have been assembled in that vicinity. John- 
ston would thus have been exposed to the strokes of two 
armies, one of which was equal and the other much 
superior to his own. By ordering Buell to move upon 
Johnston's flank and rear, so as to cut off his retreat to 
the east or south, and precipitating Grant and Pope upon 
him from the north, nothing could have saved his army 
from being driven to the Mississippi and captured there. It 
was by just such dispositions that the Prussians were cooped 
up and captured at Ulm, and the French at Metz and 
Sedan, and by which General Bourbaki, with about 100,000 
men, was driven into Switzerland by Marshal Manteufel. 
By a single stroke wisely directed, General Halleck could, 
without failure, have ended the Rebellion as far as the 
States between the Mississippi and Savannah rivers are 
concerned ; an event which would speedily have terminated 
the war. Prior to the final accomplishment of these dis- 
positions. General Pope, with Commodore Foote, might, 
or might not, have been sent as they were down the Mis- 
sissippi, there being but little choice between the two 
arrangements. 

The plan which was adopted. 

What our General did propose, as the highest end 
which he hoped to reach, is quite manifest. It was simply 
this, and nothing more or less ; to wit, to capture the post 
at Corinth by expelling Beauregard from the place. The 
ultimate aim of our leading commanders during the war 
seems to have been, not to wipe out the armies of the 
Confederacy, but to take and hold territory, to capture 
fortified places irrespective of their stategic relations, and 
simply to take the positions at any time occupied by the 
enemy's armies. The movements of General Halleck upon 
Corinth were as if himself and army had been smitten with 
a paralysis. For about two weeks after the arrival ot 
General Pope, he stood still where he was ; for three weeks 



GENERAL HALLECK AT PITTSBURG. I4I 

more he crept along at a less rate than one mile a day ; 
our nearest batteries, at the end of this period, being three 
miles distant from Corinth. Having held our army at bay 
thus long, General Beauregard, now in command, com- 
pleted the evacuation of the post on the night of May 
29th. On entering the place our army found some piles 
of provisions in flames, and one full warehouse undamaged, 
but no guns or small arms. On the barracks they found 
everywhere written, " These premises to rent. Enquire of 
G. T. Beauregard." General Pope, with no material re- 
sults, pursued for a short distance the enemy in his retreat, 
and then rejoined the army. While our army remained at 
Pittsburg Landing, and more especially during its advance 
amid the marshes which lie between that place and Corinth, 
a horrid pestilence, more destructive than a battle could 
have been, broke out among our men. While many died, 
and many more lay in hospitals, at least 500 per day 
were sent down the river for their homes, presenting 
everywhere through the Western States the most ghastly 
appearance conceivable. Nothing could have given the 
people such a horror of the war as the aspect of these men 
did. What was singular about the matter was the common 
sentiment of reprobation in which they all held the General 
in supreme command. We never saw, or heard of, a man 
from that army who spoke well of him. One of our 
captains, sent home on account of sickness, gave to us 
personally this statement, as illustrative of the spirit with 
which our army was governed in the interest of slavery : — 
" At one time," he said, *' I was sent off into the country 
in command of two companies. We started after break- 
fast, taking no provisions with us, being told that the 
provision wagons would overtake us in the afternoon. 
They did not arrive, and we encamped at night dinnerless 
and supperless. In the afternoon of the second day the 
hunger of the men became intolerable, and perceiving a 
flock of sheep on a slave plantation near by, a sufficient 
number were taken for present relief. On the third day 
the promised provisions arrived. When the facts became 
known to the General in command, we, the officers of these 
companies, were fined two hundred dollars, which we paid, 
for not restraining our men from thus satisfying the crav- 



142 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

ings of hunger. On another occasion, when on a march 
where the men had no opportunity to fill their canteens 
but from the brooks which they passed over, they stopped 
to fill them at the well of a planter, a well which stood in 
his yard near the road. The proprietor stepped out upon 
his piazza, and imperiously ordered the intruders to leave 
his premises. The ofilicer in command bid them get what 
water they needed, but do no damage to the place. For 
that order, or permission, that officer was tried by a court 
marshal. He was cleared, however, because tried by 
patriot associates. Such was the spirit with which our 
armies were ruled by General Halleck and his chief sub- 
ordinate in command." Here we have one among the 
many reasons why the commander of the Western Depart- 
ment was held in such disesteem by his army and in the 
Western States. 

In regard to the benefits which resulted from the cap- 
ture of Corinth — an event which cost us the disaster at 
Pittsburg Landing, and many thousand lives through sick- 
ness — we have this to say, that the place was about as 
valuable to us, in a strategic point of view, as a cow-pen ; 
that the event simply changed the locality of the Con- 
federate army from a position where they could do us the 
least harm, and the Confederates the least good, to another 
locality from which it invaded Kentucky a second time, 
and on its return south fought, among others, the bloody 
battles of Murfreesboro', Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Nash- 
ville, and did the Union cause infinite evil. To magnify 
the idea of the advantages resulting from the event, it 
being impossible to designate any real benefit, General 
Halleck telegraphed to Washington that it was " reported 
that General Pope had taken 14,000 prisoners," and avast 
number of stands of arms, and that " all was going as he 
could desire." 

The final dispositions made after the capture of Corinth. 

If events did take the course which our General desired, 
they certainly did not eventuate in accordance with the 
requirements of the Union cause. After the capture of 
Island No. 10, the army and fleet moved down the river 
and laid siege to Fort Pillow (Wright), some 40 miles above 



GENERAL HALLECK AT PITTSBURG. 1 43 

Memphis. After remaining before the place for about two 
weeks, the army being unable to do anything on account 
of the high water, and the fleet effecting little, General 
Pope was called to Corinth, and after four weeks of ineffec- 
tive cannonade on both sides. Fort Pillow, on the fall of 
Corinth, was abandoned. During this interval, however, 
there was a severe battle between ours and a Confederate 
fleet of four vessels, one of them a very powerful ironclad 
ram, and the others boats of less power. The result of the 
battle was the disabling of the Confederate fleet, with the 
sinking of the ram, the burning of one of the boats, and the 
drifting of the others in a crippled condition under the pro- 
tection of the forts. At this time. Commodore Foote was 
necessitated to retire from his command, on account of the 
wound received at Fort Donelson. Commodore Davis, left 
in command, steamed down to Memphis, where he encoun 
tered and destroyed a Confederate fleet of eight vessels 
with which he was there assailed ; but one vessel escaping. 
Memphis was now surrendered. The capture of this city, 
with the fall of Corinth and the opening of the Mississippi 
thus far down, seemed to have fully accomplished the plan 
of General Halleck. His army was, accordingly, in reality 
dispersed ; General Buell being sent back to his command. 
General Grant placed in command at Memphis, and the 
rest of the army being distributed at intervals on lines ex- 
tending nearly or quite 200 miles. In other words, this 
army, more than 100,000 strong, was so distributed as to 
be rendered powerless for any offensive operations what- 
ever. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL HALLECK APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN- 
CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED ST A TES. 

While our army lay at Corinth, an event occurred which 
determined the conduct of the war for another eig-hteen 
months. We refer to the appointment of General Hal- 
leck, July 23rd, as Commander-in-Chief of the armies of 
the United States; General Grant being thereby left in 
command of our army at Corinth. This event, which did 
more than anything that had previously occurred to para- 
lyze the hope of the army and people, an appointment more 
universally reprobated than almost any other that could 
have been made, occurred in this manner. We give the facts 
as we received them directly from Mr. Sumner ; he receiv- 
ing them with the same directness from President Lincoln. 
Soon after the arrival of our army under McClellan at 
Harrison's Landing, the President visited the place. In 
a council of war General McClellan and certain of his 
corps commanders advised a movement from that point 
upon Richmond, General Lee's army there being repre- 
sented as 200,000 strong, and General M. offering to 
make the movement provided he could be reinforced by 
20,000 or 30,000 men. After the council broke up, a 
General in command of a division (his name we cannot 
recall) assured the President that it would be absolute 
presumption to make that movement unless the -army of 
the Potomac was increased by at least 100,000 men ; 
this assurance being rendered exceedingly plausible and 
impressive by the estimate previously given in the council 
of war, that there was at that time in Richmond under 
General Lee an army 200,000 strong. Under such cir- 
cumstances, *' My mind," said the President to Mr. 



GENERAL HALLECK APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 1 45 

Sumner, ** became perfectly perplexed, and I determined 
right then and there to appoint a Commander-in-Chief who 
should be responsible for our military operations, and I de- 
termined further that General Halleck should be the man. 
I according-ly, as soon as I arrived in Washington, tele- 
graphed to him to come here, and assume the responsibilities 
of that office." These are the identical circumstances 
under which that disastrous appointment was made, an ap- 
pointment which never should have been made but after 
the maturest and most careful consultations with the wisest 
men in the nation had been taken. The determination of 
the President was taken under the perplexed impression 
that circumstances demanded instant action, and that the 
Administration of the individual selected for the high office 
had been a comparative success. "So much do circum- 
stances tend to make us what we are." 

We are now to consider the movements of our armies 
as mainly directed by one mind, that of the individual 
under consideration. The visit of the President to Harri- 
son's Landing was on the 8th July. Three days after this, 
July nth, General Halleck was called to Washington to 
assume " the command of the whole land forces of the 
United States as General-in-Chief." 



10 



CHAPTER XL 

GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 

The raid of General Jackson, and the confusion resulting 
from the action of three independent commanders upon 
the same field, with no controlling mind to unify their 
forces, at length convinced the Administration of the great 
error which had been committed in the arbitrary divisions 
and separations which had been made of the army of the 
Potomac. It was accordingly determined to unite the 
corps of Fremont, McDowell, and Banks, and other reserve 
forces in and about Washington and in Northern Virginia, 
into one body under a single commander. To such com- 
mand General John Pope was called, June 26th, the day 
preceding that on which occurred the battle of Gaines' 
Mill. This appointment was exceedingly offensive to the 
three Generals above named, and indeed to the entire 
army of the Potomac. This fact, together with the 
meagreness of the means placed under his command, 
induced General Pope to request to be relieved from his 
new position and be restored to his old command. This 
request being denied, he set about the work of reorganiza- 
tion and a new disposition of his forces, so necessary in 
existing circumstances. The new organization took on 
the name of the Army of Virginia. As a field force, it 
amounted, in all, to about 42,000 men, — an army quite too 
small for any effective offensive service. The very first 
measure of the Administration, and of our new Com- 
mander-in-Chief, who was appointed fifteen days after 
General Pope, after the organization of this new army 
should have been to render its strength quite double what 
it then was. All this could readily have been done, one 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARAfY OF VIRGINIA. 1 47 

half the number required being furnished by the union of 
General Cox's division with the corps of General Burnside, 
and the remaining 20,000 drawn from other departments. 
Before the close of July a force 80,000 strong might 
undeniably have been concentrated in the vicinity of 
Culpepper. With this army at this point, and the army 
at Harrison's Landing, then consisting, by official re- 
port, of an effective force 101,691 strong, no new dis- 
positions could have been required for an advance upon 
Richmond. The true policy unquestionably was to have 
kept the army under McClellan where it was until that of 
Virginia was prepared as above stated. All things being 
in readiness, McClellan should have crossed the James 
river at Burmuda Hundred, we think, and having fortified 
that point, have seized Lee's communications south of 
Richmond; our forces being so disposed that McClellan's 
left should, as early as possible, have been brought into 
communication with Pope's right wing. The results of 
the campaign thus conducted, cannot be a matter of 
rational doubt. If any one is disposed to doubt the 
practicability of reinforcing the army of Virginia as above 
indicated, let him consider the following facts. At this 
very time there lay at Helena, Arkansas, on the Mississippi 
river, an army wholly unemployed, and numbering upwards 
of 20,000 men — the army commanded by General Curtis. 
This army could have been put upon the transports, then 
in readiness, and forwarded to Washington by the time 
when their presence was required. At the same time 
20,000 more men could have been spared from the army 
assembled at Corinth, and this without endangering any 
interests in that quarter. Consider, still further, the 
strength of the American army at this time. According 
to the report of the Secretary of War, submitted to Con- 
gress on the I St December of that year, our army con- 
sisted, according to the last returns, of upwards of 750,000 
men, all " well armed and equipped." In the July pre- 
vious, that army must have been not far from 700,000 
strong. We should stiltify ourselves if we should question 
the fact that from all these immense forces 40,000 men 
could have been drawn for the army of Virginia, and 
20,000 or even 30,000 more for that of the Potomac. 



148 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

There can have been no valid excuse for not having" 
rendered both these armies fully adequate in numbers to 
all the responsibilities devolved upon them. While the 
reinforcements above referred to were being- brought up, 
the army of Virginia, with absolute directions to fight no 
important battle, should have been employed in making 
threatening demonstrations in the direction of Richmond, 
and all for the purpose of drawing off to the north as 
many of General Lee's forces as possible. At the same 
time, General McClellan's army should have made no 
demonstrations in any direction, the newspapers being 
filled with reports that he was to be speedily united with 
the army of Virginia for the protection of Washington. 
Should General Lee show a disposition to move north 
still farther, into Ma^-yla'^i and Pennsylvania, none but an 
apparent resistance to such a movement should have been 
made. Any General having the forces at his command 
that General Halleck had, would have built all the bridges 
above Harper's Ferry that General Lee could desire, pro- 
vided the latter would have agreed to pass his army over 
them. In neither of those invasions would any wise Com- 
mander-in-Chief, as we shall see, have permitted a single 
division of General Lee's army to have recrossed the 
Potomac. 

The campaign of the army of Virginia. 

Let us now consider the campaign of the army of 
Virginia as actually conducted by General Pope. In 
judging of the merits and demerits of a General, we must 
consider, not only what he accomplished, and failed to ac- 
complish, but more especially the amount of forces put 
under his command, together with the character of the 
commanders opposed to him, and the amount of forces 
which they brought into the field. We must bear in 
mind that General Pope was compelled to take the field 
with an army but about 40,000 strong ; that at no time 
did he have under his immediate control over 60,000 
men ; that he had opposed to him the best Generals 
known to the Confederacy, with the crushing masses of 
General Lee's army under their control. The public 
generally have the impression that the army of the Poto - 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 49 

mac came to the aid of that of Virginia, and that, with the 
united forces of both armies under his command, General 
Pope suffered an inglorious defeat. We must bear in 
mind here that while an army consisting of 101,691 men 
present for duty did, two corps excepted, come up with 
General McClellan, but 20,500 of these were ever present 
under General Pope's command, and that quite one half 
of these. General Porter's corps, in consequence of what 
General Pope truly designated as ** unnecessary and un- 
usual delays, and flagrant disregard of his orders, took no 
part whatever except in the action of the 30th August." 

When he first took command. General Pope issued a 
number of imposing orders which needlessly offended the 
army of the Potomac on the one hand, and the Con- 
federates on the other. When asked, at the time, what we 
thought of these orders, our reply was, that the proper 
answer depended very much upon the number of men 
General Pope had under his command. If his force was 
ioo,coo strong, those orders were boastfully ostentatious, 
but endurable. If, on the other hand, his army numbered 
but about 50,000 men, then the same orders were con- 
temptible. To judge rightly of these orders, we must take 
into account, not only the forces under his immediate com- 
mand at the time, but the reinforcements pledged him 
from the army of the Potomac. It should also be borne 
in mind that the issuing of just such orders has been a 
quite common infirmity of great commanders of all ages. 
Such facts, therefore, should be left out of the account 
when we would judge of the leal merits of any General as 
a military man. 

The specific mission of the army of Virginia when 
General Pope took the field, it having been then deter- 
mined to remove the army of the Potomac to the vicinity^ 
of Washington, was to hold the army of General Lee in 
check until our two armies were united, when, with their con- 
centrated force, they might fall upon the Confederate army 
and crush it. What were the successive dispositions and 
movements directed by General Pope for the accomplish- 
ment of these ends ? The first position which he assumed 
was on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, south of the 
Rappahannock, having called the corps of Banks and Fre- 



150 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

mont, that of the latter now commanded by Slegel, from 
the Shenandoah valley, to the east of the Blue Ridge. 
The avowed object of this disposition of his forces was to 
prevent an advance of the Confederates into the Shenan- 
doah on the one hand, and in the direction of v/ashington 
on the other. While these are the very ends at which he 
should have aimed, a careful examination of the maps 
furnished by the Committee on the Conduct of the War 
will most fully evince that no disposition of his forces 
better adapted to ensure these ends could have been made. 
Prior to the battle of Cedar Mountain, General Banks, with 
his corps, some 8,000 strong, was sent forward to this point; 
General McDowell, with one division of his corps, that of 
Ricketts, was placed three miles in the rear of General 
Banks ; while General Siegel was ordered to move from 
Sperryville to Culpepper Court House : all parts of his 
army being placed in easy supporting distances from each 
other, and the whole on a line best adapted to secure the 
ends above designated. On August 9th, General Jackson, 
having crossed his army over the Rapidan, advanced upon 
General Banks's position. Up to nearly 5 p.m. nothing 
occurred but desultory firing between the outposts of 
General Banks and the advanced forces of General Jack- 
son. About this time, General Banks made an imprudent 
advance of quite one mile from the strong position which 
he had occupied, and fell upon the Confederates, who had 
come up with far greater force than was anticipated. At ' 

first the enemy was driven back with great slaughter. At 
length numbers prevailed, and General Banks was gradu- 
ally pushed back to his original position, where, after the 
most terrible fighting for the space of about an hour and a 
half, General Pope with Ricketts's division came up, when 
the Confederates in their turn were driven backward. That 
evening and early the next morning the whole of General 
Pope's forces were on the field, and ready to renew the con- 
flict. On account of the excessive heat of the day, neither 
army assumed the offensive. In the evening and night 
following, however. General Jackson made a precipitate 
retreat back to Gordonsville, '* leaving," in the language 
of General Pope, " many of his dead and wounded on the 
field and on the road from Cedar Mountain to Orange 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. I5I 

Court House." Thus, when Jackson and Pope first met, 
the former found himself outgeneraled and overmatched 
by his new antagonist. For the generalship manifested in 
thus foiling Jackson in his first advance upon our lines, and 
compelling him to make a precipitate retreat to the position 
from which he started, General Pope, and most justly, 
received the warmest commendations of the military 
authorities at Washington, General Halleck very promptly 
sending him a most congratulatory letter. 

General Pope^s dispositions north of the Rappahannock. 

After this battle. General Pope was reinforced by a 
division, 8,000 strong, from General Burnside's command, 
a division commanded by General Reno. In one of his 
cavalry raids, the Adjutant of General Stuart was cap- 
tured, and with him was found, in the language of 
General Pope, " an autograph letter of General R. E. Lee 
to General Stuart, dated, at Gordonsville, August 15th, 
which made manifest to me the position and force of the 
enemy, and their determination to overwhelm the army 
under my command before it could be reinforced by any 
portion of the army of the Potomac." This important 
revelation induced General Pope to withdraw at once from 
the position he then occupied, and redistribute his army 
behind the Rappahannock. The fundamental object of 
this new disposition and location of forces was to hold 
back, for the time being, the army of General Lee, on the 
south of that river, on the one hand, to keep open his 
communications with Aquia and Alexandria, from whence 
his reinforcements from the army of the Potomac were 
anticipated. Another object was to render his line so 
short and compact that the enemy could not break through 
it and thus destroy our army in detail. These are the 
identical ends which good generalship demanded. How 
did our General accomplish these results ? On this sub- 
ject we will permit General Pope to speak for himself: — 
"I directed," he says, "Major-General Reno to send 
back his trains on the morning of the i8th, by way of 
Stevensburg, to Kelly's or Burnet's Ford, and as soon as 
the train had gotten several hours in advance, to follow 
them with his whole corps, and to take post behind the 



152 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Rappahannock, leaving- all his cavalry in the neighbour- 
hood of Raccoon Ford, to cover this movement. General 
Banks's corps, which had been ordered on the 12th to take 
position at Culpepper Court House, t directed, with its 
train preceding" it, to cross the Rappahannock at the point 
where the Orange and Alexandria Railroad crosses that 
river. General McDowell's train was ordered to pursue 
the same route, while the train of General Siegel was 
directed through Jefferson, to cross the Rappahannock at 
Sulphur Sprino-s. So soon as he had been sul xiently 
advanced, McDowell's corps was directed to take the 
route from Culpepper to Rappahannock Ford ; whilst 
General Siegel, who was on the right and front, was 
directed to follow the movement of his train to Sulphur 
Springs. These movements were executed during the day 
and night of the i8th, and the day of the 19th ; by which 
time the whole army with its trains had safely recrossed 
the Rappahannock, and was posted behind that stream, 
with its left at Kelly's Ford, and its right about three 
miles above Rappahannock Station ; General Siegel hav- 
ing been directed, immediately upon crossing at Sulphur 
Springs, to march down the left bank of the Rappahan- 
nock until he connected closely with General McDowell's 
right." 

It is hardly conceivable that an army nearly 50,000 
strong could have been moved with more prudence and 
dispatch than this was, or how the new disposition of 
forces could have been improved. Hence, when General 
Lee had brought up his whole army, and attempted to 
force a passage in his front over the Rappahannock, he 
was everywhere readily repulsed. The position of General 
Pope, however, while it rendered his left secure against a 
flank movement in that direction, was manifestly exposed 
to a similar movement on his right. The distance from 
General Lee's position to Warrenton, via Sulphur Springs, 
Thompson's Ford, and Waterloo, was but a few miles 
greater than by the several routes in his front. To this 
liability General Pope was fully awake, and made before- 
hand all needful preparations to meet it, should it occur. 
Still, the question arose whether it was not best to retire 
still nearer the reinforcements expected from the army 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. I53 

of the Potomac and other sources, and there await the 
approach of General Lee. On forwarding- such questions 
to Washington, he received positive instructions to remain 
where he was, instructions accompanied with the absolute 
assurance that in forty-eight hours all the reinforcement 
needed both for defensive and offensive operations would 
reach him. On the i8th General Halleck, by telegram, 
said : *' Stand firm on the line till I can help you. Fight 
hard, and aid will soon come." On the 21st General 
Halleck sent again :' " Dispute every inch of ground, and 
fight like the devil till we can reinforce you. Forty-eight 
hours more and we can make you strong enough. Don't 
yield an inch if you can help it." Such instructions and 
promises left no alternative but to wait and fight as re- 
quired. Yet, up to the 25th, four days later, all the 
reinforcements received amounted to only 7,000 men, — 
a brigade 2,500 strong under General Reynolds, and 
Kearny's division, 4,500 strong. Finding that the enemy 
was moving in force upon Warrenton, via Sulphur 
Springs, a choice remained between two courses, — to 
cross the Rappahannock, and assail the forces still remain- 
ing in his front ; or, by a movement lo his right, to move 
his forces upon that portion of Lee's army which had 
crossed the river. The former, though hazardous, was 
determined on. Accordingly on the evening of the 22nd 
all arrangements were perfected for crossing the river the 
next morning. During the night, however, a heavy storm 
of rain raised the river some seven or eight feet, carried 
off the bridges, and rendered crossing in either direction 
impossible. This event, while it precluded the possibility 
of a passage of the river on the part of either army for at 
least thirty-six hours, exposed, during this period, the 
portion of the Confederate forces which had crossed at 
Sulphur Springs and Waterloo, to the crushing blows of 
all the forces under General Pope's command. To accom- 
plish this result, General Pope at once moved his whole 
army still farther up the river ; his advance, under Siegel, 
supported by the corps of Generals Reno and Banks, occu- 
pied Sulphur Springs, while a cavalry force took possession 
of Waterloo. It was now found that the forces of the 
enemy which had crossed the river at these places had 



154 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

retired, their advance being but a feint to mask a detour 
still farther north. 

RELATIONS EXISTING AT THIS TIME BETWEEN THE ARMY 
OF VIRGINIA AND THAT OF THE POTOMAC. 

As all the future operations of the army of Virginia 
were connected with those of that of the Potomac, we 
now invite special attention to certain facts connected with 
the movements and dispositions of the army last de- 
signated. On the 5th August General McClellan received 
an absolute order, which he was assured would not be 
revoked, to remove his army ''with all possible prompt- 
ness" to the vicinity of Washington. That this end 
might be accomplished with all practicable dispatch, 
General McClellan was authorised to avail himself at once 
of all the vast fleets of war vessels and transports on the 
James river and in Chesapeake Bay. How was the order 
obeyed ? It was an order, to be sure, which General 
McClellan disapproved. This fact, however, made no 
change whatever in respect to his duty. 

Important statement of Rev. Lucius C. Matlack, 

Perhaps the following statement, made to the author 
of this treatise by Rev. Lucius C. Matlack, who up to the 
time when General McClellan received the order above 
referred to had been the chaplain of the Illinois 8th 
Cavalry, and afterwards accepted the office of Major in an 
Illinois infantry regiment, may be of interest to my country- 
men. Mr. Matlack, permit us to add, is now a leading 
minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is a man 
whose veracity has not yet been questioned. On board a 
steamer from James river to Baltimore, our chaplain found 
himself in company with two other officers from the Poto- 
mac army, one of these having been a clerk on the staff" of 
General F. J. Porter. This clerk remarked to his asso- 
ciates that there were four Generals in the Potomac 
army who would not co-operate with General Pope, nor 
obey his orders, when they should come within his depart- 
ment. We refrain from giving the names of these Gene- 
rals. The reader, however, will be ab'e to determine their 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 55 

names, in view of facts hereafter presented. This clerk 
affirmed that he had heard these men converse tog-ether 
upon the subject, and knew that they had agreed together 
to act as above stated. After the close of General Pope's 
campaign, this clerk remarked to his associates that they 
could now understand how perfectly his statements cor- 
responded with the facts which had just occurred. We do 
not here affirm that any such agreement ever existed be- 
tween these Generals. We think, however, that the testi- 
mony of Rev. L. C. Matlack is adequate evidence that 
the existence of that agreement was affirmed prior to 
the facts referred to, and that the occurrence of the facts 
was afterwards presented in verification of said affirma- 
tion. The question now before us is this : taking that state- 
ment as one of our guiding lights, how far will it enable 
us to explain the facts before us ? The plan of the Con- 
federates to move upon Washington and capture the city 
before the army of the Potomac should be removed thither 
for its defence, was, through spies in Richmond, early 
communicated to the authorities in Washington, and urged 
upon General McClellan as a most imperative reason for the 
greatest possible despatch in pushing forward his army to 
the threatened capital of the nation. How far did he fulfil 
these pressing obligations ? We must bear in mind that, 
according to his own statements, he transferred his army, 
120,500 strong, in about thirty days. With the most abun- 
dant means of transportation at his command, it took him 
full twenty days to transport to Alexandria and push for- 
ward to Bealton and Warrenton, so as to co-operate with 
General Pope in the defence of the national capital, 20,500 
men ; and that these were all that were brought forward so 
as to fire a gun in any of the battles in which they were 
expected to take a part. When these forces did arrive, 
they were in as bad a condition as can well be conceived, 
The corps of General Heintzelman when it arrived at War- 
renton was destitute of artillery, and was furnished with 
only four rounds of ammunition per man ; the corps of 
General Porter being furnished with only forty rounds for 
each man. It would seem as if they were sent into the 
field with the deliberate intention that they should do as 
little effective service as possible. Yet these two corps 



156 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

were sent into the field thus powerless for any service in 
open opposition to an express order sent on from Washing- 
ton, namely, " By all means see that the troops sent have 
plenty of ammunition," and to the pledge implied in 
McClellan's own reply, to wit, *' I have ample supplies of 
ammunition for infantry and artillery, and will have it up 
in time." One of the difficulties which Heintzelman's 
corps suffered was the want of the promised supply of 
ammunition. 

But why this unheard-of tardiness in getting his forces 
into the field ? On the first day of August, McClellan 
received positive instructions to remove his sick and 
wounded, their number, according to his own report, being 
about 12,500, 4,000 of whom were able "to make short 
marches." Not one of these had been removed on the 
5th, when he received the absolute command to transport 
his entire army to the department of Washington. When 
this order was received, the entire fleet put under his 
control was put into exclusive requisition to send off the 
12,500 men referred to. On the i6th, at 11 p.m., he 
telegraphed that " all the sick will be away to-morrow 
night," and that " the movement had commenced by land 
and water." The movement referred to was not the 
embarking of troops, but the commencement of an up- 
wards of three days' march to their places of embarkation. 
Prior to the 12th August, as General McClellan was 
informed by a telegram from General Halleck, " Burnside 
moved nearly 13,000 to Aquia Creek in two days, and his 
transports were immediately sent back to you." Yet, 
notwithstanding all that could have been said by com- 
mand, urgency, and reproof, all being intermingled in the 
telegrams sent down from Washington, and notwithstand- 
ing the revealed peril of the army of Virginia, and the 
national capital, not a single division could he be induced 
to put aboard one of these, or any other transports, until 
about the 20th of the month ; while the 20,500 that were 
then sent forward, the only troops that he could be 
induced to send into the field at all, were, in opposition to 
absolute command and promise, sent forward in the help- 
less condition above stated. We challenge the world to 
explain these facts but upon one of two hypotheses — that 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 57 

General McClellan is a blind and self-willed imbecile, or 
that he deliberately intended that the army of Virginia 
should be crushed by that of General Lee, and that what- 
ever the consequences pertaining to the national capital 
might be. These deductions will become still more 
evident in the sequel. 

The nciv movement of the Co7ifederates ^ and the new distribution 
of forces made by General Pope. 

We now return to a consideration of the new move- 
ments made by General Lee on the one hand, and of 
General Pope on the other, from their respective positions 
on the Rappahannock. Having been foiled in his attempt 
to force a passage across the river in his front, and to turn 
General Pope's right wing by crossing said river at 
Sulphur Springs and Waterloo, General Jackson was 
commanded to move several miles west of the places last 
designated, then to march north, via Salem, then turn to 
his right, and passing through Bull Run mountains by 
Thoroughfare Gap, to move from thence directly east in 
the direction of Gainesville ; General Lee in the meantime 
making all practicable arrangements to move his whole 
army as soon as possible in the same direction, it being 
necessary, for the protection of his flank and rear, to 
retain on the Rappahannock the main body of his army 
as long as he was confronted by General Pope. The 
movement of Jackson was no surprise to his wakeful 
antagonist. From signal stations the number of regi- 
ments (36) which Jackson had with him was accurately 
determined, together with his batteries and cavalry, and 
also the specific direction of his column. From these 
facts, the plan of General Lee became perfectly manifest ; 
which was this, to interpose Jackson between the army of 
Virginia and Washington, to hold Pope in check until 
Lee should come up in full force, then to fall upon the 
former and crush him, and, lastly, to make a rush for the 
national capital. The counter plan of General Pope was 
instantly taken, and all the requisite arrangements were 
promptly ordered. His own plan, which was communi- 
cated to Washington, was, in substance, this : to throw his 
own army upon Jackson's rear, and cut off his retreat, 



158 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

thereby also preventing any reinforcements reaching him 
from General Lee ; to confront and hedge in Jackson with 
adequate force sent out from Alexandria and Wash- 
ington, and then crush him between the two forces thus 
advancing upon him ; and, last of all, with the united 
armies of Virginia and of the Potomac to fall upon 
General Lee and make a final disposition of him and of 
his army. Such, in fact and form, was the plan of 
General Pope, a plan worthy of the greatest General of 
the age. What were the dispositions and arrangements 
made and ordered by him for the accomplishment of this 
plan ? 

Dispositions and arrangements made and ordered by General 
Pope for the consummation of his plan. 

These dispositions and arrangements may be stated in 
a few words. He had just received word (August 23rd and 
24th), direct from head-quarters, that reinforcements, con- 
sisting of Sturgis's division, 10,000 strong. Cox's, 7,000 
strong, and the corps of Generals Heintzelman and Franklin, 
10,000 each, 37,000 in all, would be forwarded to him that 
afternoon or early the next morning. Of the forces thus 
promised he forwarded an order that one of the strongest 
divisions (10,000) should stop at Manassas and hold the 
fortifications there, and that Franklin's corps should be 
forwarded with all despatch to Gainesville ; the remainder 
promised, with Porter's corps already on the ground, being 
deemed sufficient for the work which General Pope had 
immediately in hand, as the forces with him would be 
much superior to those under Jackson. Of the other 
forces promised, none but the single corps of General 
Heintzelman and General Piatt's brigade of Sturgis's 
command did arrive at all ; and this body came out from 
under the direct cognizance of General McClellan, without 
artillery and without ammunition, as above stated. How 
and why all the remainder were kept back from moving at 
all we shall see hereafter. The forces under his immediate 
command were, in the language of General Pope, to *' be 
assembled along the Warrenton turnpike between Warren- 
ton and Gainesville, and give battle to the enemy on my 
right or left, as he might choose." Suppose now tha<- 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 59 

Gainesville and Manassas had been occupied as directed, 
and that General Cox had been forwarded as promised, 
and consequently calculated upon, we may ask any military 
man to point out a single defect in the plan under con- 
sideration, or to show how it might have been improved. 
Can there be a reasonable doubt that had these directions 
been complied with Jackson would have been utterly 
routed, and that Lee would never have seen, with his 
army, Maryland or Pennsylvania ? 

Movements of General Jackson. 

The distance which General Jackson, on account of the 
obstructions which General Pope presented by his dispositions 
on the north side of the Rappahannock, was necessitated to 
march in reaching Gainesville, was nearly or quite twice as 
great as the direct one which lay open to the latter. As 
long as General Lee with his main army, however, con- 
tinued in General Pope's front on the south side of the 
river, the latter was necessitated to keep his main army 
where it was. Had General Pope turned upon Jackson 
while he was in his (Pope's) immediate rear, Lee and 
Jackson would, both in front and rear, have fallen upon 
the army of Virginia and "ground it to powder." Be- 
coming fully satisfied, by the evening of the 26th and early 
the next morning, that General Lee had gone in the direc- 
tion which General Jackson had taken. General Pope set 
his entire army in motion for the accomplishment of his 
plan for the destruction of the army of the latter. 

While General Pope had been thus detained. General 
Jackson had proceeded by forced marches for the accom- 
plishment of his masterly flank movement. On arriving 
in the vicinity of Gainesville, he found no enemy at all con- 
fronting him in the direction of Washington or Alexandria. 
He accordingly divided his army, sending Ewell to the 
south-east to cut the Orange Railroad, near Kettle Run, 
some five or six miles east of Warrenton Junction, and 
from thence to move towards Bristow Station and Manassas 
Junction, destroying the bridges and breaking the railroad 
in his course ; while Jackson himself proceeded directly to 
the junction last designated. In both directions his move- 
ments were a success. No enemy was encountered by 



l60 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Ewell. At Manassas Junction the Confederates found 
themselves opposed by but a feeble garrison, which was 
easily captured, and with it, as one of their historians 
states, " several trains heavily laden with stores, ten first 
class locomotives, fifty thousand pounds of bacon, several 
thousand barrels of flour, and a large quantity of oats and 
corn." Such was the position of Jackson's forces on the 
evening of August 26th. 

General Pope^ s movenients in the direction of Jackson. 

By the morning of the 27th General Pope's army, now 
54,000 strong, with an enfeebled and worn-out cavalry 
amounting to 4,000, was in motion in the direction of 
Gainesville and Manassas Junction. General McDowell, 
with his own and the corps of Siegel, and the division of 
Reynolds, was directed to move upon Gainesville on the 
Warrenton turnpike, and to reach his destination that 
night; which was done. On the same evening, Reno, 
followed by Kearny, was required to be at Greenwich, a 
point a few miles south-west of Gainesville, and from 
thence to communicate with and support McDowell. With 
Hooker's division. General Pope marched in the direction 
of Manassas Junction, directing General Porter to remain 
at Warrenton Junction until the arrival of General Banks, 
who was coming up from Fayetteville, some six or eight 
miles distant, and then to move upon Gainesville, where it 
was then expected that the great battle would occur. 
About four miles west of Bristow Station, Hooker encoun- 
tered Ewell's division, and by severe fighting drove it 
back to Broad Run, a short distance east of the station 
referred to. About 300, killed and wounded, were lost on 
each side, Ewell "leaving his dead, many of his wounded, 
and much baggage on the field of battle." An absolute 
/)rder was, about dark, sent back to General Porter at 
Warrenton Junction, where his corps had rested all that 
day, to march at i o'clock that night for Bristow Station, 
and report to General Pope there at daylight the next 
morning ; the officer who carried the order being directed 
to wait and act as guide to Porter in his march. This order 
Porter totally disregarded, not marching even at early dawn, 
and arriving at Bristow Station at half-past 2 o'clock. Had 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. l6l 

Porter come up as required, he and Hooker united would 
have been moved upon Ewell and Jackson, and held them 
back until they would have been fallen upon and defeated 
by Pope's centre and left, which were advancing" for that 
purpose. As it was, Jackson made a safe retreat to 
Centerville. 

The following are the positions of the Union and Con- 
federate forces on the evening of the 27th August : Jackson, 
with his own old and Hills' corps, was at Manassas ; while 
Ewell was on the east side of Broad Run, at a short dis- 
tance east of Bristow Station. On the opposite side of the 
stream lay Hooker's division. At Warrenton Junction, 
some eight or nine miles west, lay Porter's corps, with Banks 
in his immediate rear. Near Greenwich, some six or seven 
miles north-west of Hooker, lay the divisions of Reno and 
Kearny. At and near Gainesville, on Pope's extreme left, 
lay McDowell and Siegel. A better distribution of forces, 
under the circumstances, is inconceivable ; Jackson being 
completely separated from Lee, and the Union forces being 
in the best conceivable condition to render the destruction 
of the former complete. Suppose, now, that Franklin had 
been at Centerville, and Sturgis and Cox at Bull Run (and 
a not difficult day's march would have brought all their 
forces to the places designated), — where would have been 
the hope of General Jackson ? Had he attempted to retreat 
south, he would have been easily intercepted by Porter, 
Banks, Reno, Kearny, and Hooker, and finally by Sumner, 
then at Aquia Landing. Had he turned north, he would 
have been crushed between the forces of Sturgis, Cox, 
and Franklin, on the one hand, and those of Hooker, 
Kearny, Reno, McDowell, and Siegel, on the other. 
Had he given battle where he was, he would have been 
overwhelmed by the crushing forces precipitated upon him 
from all directions. Why were not these forces in the 
positions designated, to say nothing of others m.ore favour- 
able, which might have been secured for Franklin, Sturgis, 
and Cox? For no other reason, as we shall see hereafter, 
than flagrant and treasonable disobedience on the part of 
General McClellan, to absolute orders from General Pope 
on the one hand, and General Halleck on the other. 

"At 9 o'clock," says General Pope, ''satisfied of Jack- 

II 



1 62 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

son's position, I sent orders to General McDowell to push 
forward at the very earliest dawn of day towards Manassas 
Junction from Gainesville, resting his right on Manassas 
Gap railroad, and throwing his left well to the east. I 
directed General Reno to march at the same hour from 
Greenwich direct upon Manassas Junction, and Kearny to 
march at the same hour upon Bristow Station. Kearny 
arrived at Bristow about 8 o'clock in the mornip,g ; Reno 
being on his left, and marching direct upon Manassas Junc- 
tion. I immediately pushed Kearny in pursuit of Ewell 
towards Manassas, followed by Hooker." It is perfectly 
evident that had the order sent to McDowell been as 
promptly and energetically followed as were those sent to 
Kearny and Reno, Jackson would have been caught at 
Manassas, and forced to fight a great battle there. At 
half-past 7 o'clock in the morning, however. General Siegel, 
who commanded McDowell's advance, and who had re- 
ceived an order to move at 2 o'clock upon Manassas, was 
at Gainesville. McDowell had also, without Pope's know- 
ledge, sent one division of his corps, Ricketts's, in the direc- 
tion of Thoroughfare Gap. 

At about 3 o'clock in the morning Jackson began to 
evacuate Manassas, directing his flight to the north, towards 
Centerville. At 12 o'clock, August 28th, General Pope, 
with Kearny's division and Reno's corps, reached Ma- 
nassas Junction, one hour after Jackson himself had left. 
These forces, with Hooker's division, were pushed forward 
in pursuit of Jackson towards Centerville ; word being sent 
to McDowell to move his whole force in the same direction, 
while an order was sent to Porter to advance to Manassas 
Junction. Near evening, Kearny drove Jackson's rear 
guard out of Centerville, and occupied the place, with his 
advance beyond it. In retreating from this place Jackson's 
forces divided, one part moving north-west towards Sudley 
Springs, and the other part taking the Warrenton turnpike 
towards Gainesville. On this road Jackson's advance en- 
countered the forces of McDowell moving upon Centerville, 
and at 6 o'clock in the evening a severe action occurred, 
each party maintaining its ground. 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 63 

Positions of both armies on the evening of August 28/^, mid 
the battles of the day following. 

The following are the positions of the opposing armies 
on the evening of the 28th August. The main forces of 
General Jackson were distributed along the turnpike from 
Centerville to Gainesville. Heintzelman and Reno consti- 
tuted General Pope's right wing, at and near Centerville 
confronting Jackson's left and left centre. Siegel on the 
Warrenton Road confronted Jackson's right centre; whilf 
McDowell was still farther on Pope's left, with Ricketts's 
division some seven or eight miles in the direction oi 
Thoroughfare Gap. General Porter, who had been com- 
manded to advance to Manassas Junction, and was, of 
course, supposed to be there, was about midway between 
that Junction and Bristow Station, about seven or eight 
miles in the rear of Pope's left. At daylight, August 
29th, General Pope learned that King's division, which 
occupied his extreme left, had fallen back in the direction 
of Manassas. This rendered new dispositions and move 
ments of his whole line necessary. Heintzelman, with the 
divisions of Kearny and Hooker, and these supported by 
Reno, was directed to move at early dawn towards Gaines- 
ville, establish communications with Siegel, and fall upor 
the enemy wherever found. Siegel, supported by Rey 
nolds's division, was directed to make an attack as soon 
as the dawning light rendered the enemy visible. A joint 
order was sent to McDowell and Porter, to move with all 
their forces and with all speed upon Gainesville, and assault 
Jackson's right. A special order to the same effect was 
sent to General Porter. The attack made by Siegel and 
Heintzelman was a great success, Jackson being driven 
back several miles, and yet so closely pressed that about 
noon he was compelled to make a final stand, with his left 
in the neighbourhood of Sudley Springs, and his right at 
some distance south of the Warrenton turnpike ; every part 
of his line being confronted by that of General Pope. 

Waiting for McDowell and Porter to come up on his 
extreme left. General Pope suffered his men from twelve 
until after four o'clock to rest in their positions, and re- 
supply themselves with ammunition ; several skirmish- 



1 64 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

ings occurring- all along the lines whenever the enemy 
showed the least disposition to retreat. At half-past 4 
General Porter was absolutely ordered to assault the 
enemy's right, and if possible to turn his rear. An hour 
later, when Porter should have been engaged, and General 
McDowell was on the field, an attack on the whole line was 
ordered. The attack on the enemy's centre, and right 
especially, was made with such fury that Jackson's left was 
doubled up on his centre, and our forces "occupied the 
field of battle with the dead and wounded of the enemy in 
our hands." When McDowell had advanced about three- 
fourths of a mile in front of our lines, he encountered a 
determined and effective resistance from the advance of 
Longstreet. Thus matters stood at the close of the day. 
Jackson's left and centre had, by dint of hard fighting, with 
the most terrible bayonet charges, been driven back some 
three or four miles, with his dead and wounded as above 
stated. At no point had our line been forced back beyond 
its position in the morning. During the night, the enemy 
fell back, and were nowhere visible along our front in the 
morning. 

If we raise the enquiry, Who were the victors on this 
day? we have but one answer to give, namely, that we 
have higher reasons for claiming a victory for General 
Pope on this day, than we have for a similar claim in 
behalf of General McClellan at Antietam. In the former 
case, both the enemy's left and centre were driven much 
farther back than his left was in the latter. In the former 
case, the enemy withdrew from our front in the night ; 
whereas, in the latter, he remained where he was the 
evening before until the next evening, and leisurely 
retired. If we should call both of them drawn battles, we 
should not greatly err. In view of all the facts, however, 
we cannot but agree with General McDowell's remarks 
upon the winding up of the bloody conflict : — " These were 
the finishing strokes of the day, which we could now safely 
claim as ours." 

If we enquire still further, Why was not this victory 
consummated into a Waterloo defeat of the Confederate 
forces ? but one answer can, in truth and justice, be given. 
All was owing exclusively to one cause, to wit, the 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 65 

cowardly and treasonable disobedience to absolute orders 
on the part of General Porter, deliberate disobedience by 
which full 12,000 fresh troops were held back and retired 
from attacking the enemy's right at the critical moment, 
when his left was being rolled up upon his centre. Porter 
was then upon the field with his own full corps, and 
General Piatts*s brigade of Sturgis's division left under 
his command. Mr. Swinton offers this poor apology for 
Porter: — " Before he arrived upon the field, and by lo in 
the morning, the advance of Longstreet had come up, 
and, taking position on Jackson's right, drew an extension 
of the Confederate line across the Warrenton turnpike and 
Manassas Gap Railroad, thus covering all the lines of 
approach by which the column of Porter might advance 
towards Gainesville." The facts were, indeed, as here 
stated, and here we have the most absolute reasons why 
Porter should have done what he had been absolutely 
ordered to do, namely, assault this extended line, and pre- 
vent its flanking Pope's left, and rolling it up upon his 
centre. He stood still, however, and when he knew that 
his brave associates were falling by thousands, basely 
refused to take a step, or strike a blow, for their relief. 
In a dispatch to Porter, at 4.30 p.m., General Pope says : — 
" Your line of march brings you in on the enemy's right 
flank. I desire you to push forward into action at once, 
and, if possible, on his rear, keeping your right in com- 
munication with General Reynolds." "I believe — in fact, 
I am positive," says General Pope, '•' that at 5 o'clock 
in the afternoon of the 29th General Porter had in his 
front no considerable body of the enemy." Again, if 
*'he had made a vigorous attack upon the enemy, as 
he was expected and directed to do, at any time up to 
8 o'clock that night, we should have utterly crushed or 
captured the larger portion of Jackson's force before he 
could have been by any possibility sufficiently reinforced 
to have made any effective resistance." Who is right 
here, Mr. Swinton or General Pope ? Let it be borne in 
mind that when General McDowell, after finding tnat 
Porter would not advance, had taken from the latter King's 
division and, uniting it with that of Ricketts, had come 
upon the field at half-past 5 p;m., this extended line 



1 66 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

which Mr. Swinton would have us believe was sufficiently 
strong to resist the advance of 12,000 men, had made no 
move whatever to turn General Pope's left. We must 
also keep in mind that when McDowell on his arrival 
assaulted this line, King's division drove it back nearly 
three-fourths of a mile, before that division met with a 
stubborn resistance. We stultify ourselves when we enter- 
tain the idea that this line had sufficient strength to have 
resisted for an hour the united corps of McDowell and 
Porter ; that is, a force of upwards of 20,000 men. Whether 
there were few or many men in that line, Porter's duty 
as a soldier was to have made the attack ordered. For 
refusing to do it, in connexion with his other acts of 
flagrant disobedience to orders, he has been justly pro- 
nounced by an impartial court martial unworthy of a 
place in the army of his country, and of any office in the 
gift of the nation. 



THE BATTLE OF THE 3OTH AUGUST. 

Two events occurred on the morning of this day, events 
which demand special attention, as evincing most palpably 
the spirit of the men who determined the destiny of this 
campaign. When Porter was moving up into position, 
early this morning, General Griffin, who commanded one 
of Porter's divisions, — Griffin, without the knowledge of 
General Pope, without the knowledge of, or authority 
from, any one but himself and Porter, turned aside, and 
sneaked off to Centerville, taking v/ith him Piatts's brigade, 
which had been placed under the command of the former. 
Thus about one half of Porter's corps was secretly placed 
where it could, by no possibility, be of any use whatever 
on that day. When General Sturgis perceived the treason- 
able trick which was being played, he promptly took from 
Griffin Piatts's brigade, reported to General Pope, and did 
excellent service during the day. On the morning of this 
day also, General Pope received from General Franklin, at 
Anandale, some six miles from Alexandria, the following 
epistle, — a letter which, in the language of Byron, had 
nothing but '* a laughing devil in its mein " : — 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. l67 

" August 2<^ih, 1Z62. 8 p.m. 

'* I have been instructed by General McClellan to in- 
form you that he will have all available waggons at Alex- 
andria loaded with rations for your troops, and all the 
cars, also, as soon as you will send in a cavalry escort to 
Alexandria as a guard to the train. 

** Respectfully, 

*' W. B. Franklin." 

Had the escort been sent down, which would have 
occupied quite one day, McClellan would unquestionably 
have been as long in getting the waggons and cars off as 
he had been in getting Franklin off to Anandale. 

During the night after the battle on the 29th, and up 
to half-past 10 o'clock the next day. General Pope, and 
the commanders under him, fully believed that the enemy 
was retreating. Two courses were now before the army 
of Virginia — to follow up the enemy, who was obviously 
falling back upon his own reserves ; or to fall back upon 
Centerville, where our own reserves were at last concen- 
trating. The latter undoubtedly was the course demanded 
by the highest wisdom, and would have corresponded to 
Wellington's retreat from Quatre Bras to Waterloo. The 
former course, as was natural in the circumstances, was 
adopted, although we had but about 40,000 fighting men 
upon the field. Hence the second battle of Bull Run, 
which was commenced about 2 p.m., and raged with terri- 
ble fury until darkness separated the deadly combatants. 
"By dark," says General Pope, "our left, where the 
heaviest fighting was, had been forced back about half 
or three-quarters of a mile, but still remained firm and 
unbroken, and still covered the turnpike in our rear." 
At 8 o'clock, in accordance with written instructions, our 
army retired in perfect order to Centerville, to which point 
the corps of Sumner and Franklin had advanced. Here 
the campaign of the army of Virginia really ended, ^ the 
enemy afterwards only making demonstrations, as feints, 
to cover his ultimate designs, which now were, the idea 
of capturing Washington being abandoned, to move across 
the Upper Potomac into Maryland and Pennsylvania. In 



1 68 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

justice to General Porter, it should be said that on the last 
of these days of horrible fighting he was himself again, 
and with the one half of his corps which he had not sent 
off where they could do nothing, he did effective service 
on the field. Up to this time his presence had been nothing 
but an eating cancer upon the body of that army, and the 
morning of the 30th he had, as stated, recklessly sent 
away 5,000 men, whose presence, at the crisis of the 
battle, might have changed materially the fortunes of the 
dayo The losses during these three days, though not 
accurately stated, were fearful on both sides ; General Pope 
estimating our loss on the 29th at about 7,000, the loss 
on the side of the Confederates being supposed to have 
been greater than on ours. To flagrant disobedience to 
orders, disobedience by which 12,000 men were prevented 
firing a gun for two days, and 5,000 rendered useless for 
the third, — to such disobedience one half, at least, of this 
loss must be charged. 

Causes of the disasters of this campaign. 

No candid mind can entertain a doubt that had General 
Porter been as prompt in obedience to order, and as ener- 
getic in action, as, for example, General Heintzelman was, 
and had 10,000 men been placed in the fortifications of 
Manassas Junction, and 12,000 been sent to Gainesville, as 
Pope positively directed, Lee would never have reinforced 
Jackson, nor Jackson rejoined Lee ; nor would Lee have 
crossed the Potomac, unless as a prisoner of war. Nor 
can any such mind doubt the perfect practicability of the 
full accomplishment of every order which General Pope 
gave. His orders to Porter were just as plain as were 
those to Heintzelman, and obedience in one case was just 
as practicable and sacredly binding as in the other. We 
should stultify ourselves if, for a moment, we should enter- 
tain the idea that 10,000 men might not have been placed 
in the fortifications at Manassas Junction, before Jackson 
arrived there, and that 1 2,000 men might not have been sent 
to Centerville or Gainesville, as General Pope ordered. Who 
can believe that it was needful to employ, for eighteen 
days, all the available fleet and transports of the United 
States, in transporting from McClellan's quarters to a 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 69 

place of safety 12,500 sick and wounded men, 4,000 of 
whom were reported able to make short and easy marches ? 
Who can believe that after orders had been given to 
remove that army with the greatest possible dispatch, 
fifteen days need to have transpired before a single man 
capable of taking the field was sent off to the place 
required ? Say not that the fleet was employed in carrying 
off the sick and wounded The portion of the fleet which, 
in two days, conveyed Burnside's corps, 13,000 strong, 
from that vicinity to Aquia, was immediately sent back 
to McClellan, and was not needed to carry away the sick. 
By availing himself of this fleet, he might, undeniably, 
between the 12th and 20th August, when his first rein- 
forcements were sent off, have forwarded to Aquia and 
Alexandria at least 50,000 men. Who, let us ask again, 
can believe that in twenty-five days, after the absolute 
order was given to forward reinforcements with all possible 
haste, but 20,500 men could have been sent to the army of 
Virginia ? We are not fools ; and we should make fools of 
ourselves, if we should admit that there was all diligence, 
that there was anything but intentional delay, in this case. 
Look now at the facts which transpired after the arrival 
of McClellan at Alexandria. He was specifically directed, 
as we have seen, to be certain that all the men he sent off 
were well supplied with ammunition, and had avowed him- 
self well able to comply, and absolutely pledged himself 
to comply, with the requisition. Yet, not a corps or divi- 
sion did he send off that was furnished with ammunition 
adequate for a single battle, the uniform average being 
but forty rounds per man. On the 23rd August, General 
Pope received a message from the Commander-in-Chief 
that " heavy reinforcements would begin to arrive at 
Warrenton Junction the succeeding day." On the 24th, 
General Pope received word from Colonel Haupt, railroad 
superintendent at Alexandria, " that 30,000 men had de- 
manded from him transportation, and that they would all 
be shipped that afternoon or early the next morning." 
The forces specifically promised "consisted of the division 
of General Sturgis, 10,000 strong; the division of General 
Cox, 7,000 strong ; the corps of General Heintzelman, 
10,000 strong; and the corps of General Franklin, 10,000 



lyO THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Strong-,'* — 37,000 In all. Of these, General Pope directed 
that 10,000 should stop at Manassas Junction, and 10,000 
be forwarded to Gainesville. To accomplish these direc- 
tions required no change of railroad arrangements what 
ever. The cars containing the first 10,000 would stop at 
Manassas ; those containing the second would diverge 
from thence on the Manassas Gap Railroad to Gainesville ; 
while the remainder would have moved directly on to 
Warrenton. Of all these 37,000 reinforcements thus in 
fact and form promised, not a man, with the exception 
of Heintzelman's corps and a single brigade of General 
Sturgis's division, overcame to Warrenton, or was sent out 
of Alexandria as pledged ; and Jackson took unresisted 
possession of Gainesville and Manassas Junction both. 
Why were all the rest of these forces kept back ? The 
men were on the ground, and had demanded transportation. 
Ample means of transportation were on hand, as Colonel 
Haupt affirmed. Yet about 25,000 of the promised rein- 
forcements remained in Alexandria. For this fact but one 
cause can be assigned — flagrant, if not treasonable, dis- 
obedience to orders from the Commander-in-Chief on the 
part of General McClellan. Not a man could move until 
the latter ordered it. What were the orders which he did 
receive on this subject? On the 27th, at 10 a.m., he re- 
ceived from General Halleck an order " to have Franklin's 
corps march in the direction of Manassas Junction as 
soon as possible." At 10.40 a.m., McClellan replies: 
*' I have sent orders to Franklin to prepare to march with 
his corps at once, and to repair here in person to inform 
as to his means of transportation." At meridian, General 
Halleck telegraphs again, " Porter reports a general battle 
imminent. Franklin's corps should move out by forced 
marches, carrying three or four days' provisions, and to 
be supplied as far as possible by railroad." To this, the 
following reply was immediately sent: " My aid has just 
i^eturned from General Franklin's camp ; reports that 
Generals Franklin, Smith, and Slocum are all in Washing- 
ton. He gave orders to the next in rank to place the 
corps in readiness to move at once." August 28th, 
General Halleck sent the following order to Franklin : 
"On parting with General McClellan, about 2 o'clock 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA, 171 

this morning, it was understood that you were to move 
with your corps to-day towards Manassas Junction, to 
drive the enemy from the railroad. I have just learned 
that the General has not yet returned to Alexandria. If 
you have not received his order, act on this." At 
I p.m. McClellan, not Franklin, replies: " Your despatch 
to Franklin received. I have been doing all possible 
to hurry artillery and cavalry. The moment Franklin 
can be started with a reasonable amount of artillery, 
he shall go." To this, General Halleck replies : " Not 
a moment must be lost in pushing as large a force as 
possible to Manassas, so as to communicate with Pope, 
before the enemy is reinforced." At 4 p.m. McClellan 
replies: "Franklin's corps has been ordered to march at 
6 o'clock to-morrow morning." At 10 30, August 29th, 
McClellan telegraphs Halleck again : *' Franklin's corps is 
in motion: started about 6 a.m. I can give him but two 
squadrons of cavalry." '* I do not think Franklin is in a 
condition to accomplish much if he meets strong resistance. 
I should not have moved him but for your pressing orders 
last night." Under what orders, as far as General Halleck 
was concerned, did Franklin move ? We know, in view 
of those orders, how the message " Franklin's corps is in 
motion " was understood by the authorities at Washing- 
ton. Under what secret orders from McClellan did he 
move ? This, and nothing more — to march, not for Ma- 
nassas, or Pope's army, but as far as Anandale, some six 
miles from Alexandria, and then stop. Was not the declara- 
tion, made as it was in reply to an absolute order that 
Franklin should move on to Manassas, and accompanied 
as it was by the secret order under consideration, — was not 
the declaration "Franklin's corps is in motion" a black 
and treasonable falsehood ? We can make nothing else out 
of it. With what coolness was the following telegram to 
General Halleck, a message sent at noon of this same day, 
dictated : "Do you wish the movement of Franklin's corps 
to continue ? He is without reserve, ammunition, and 
without transportation." The facts, and the telegrams 
before us, render it palpably evident that in the face of 
absolute orders from the supreme authorities, orders given 
both to McClellan and Franklin, on the one hand, and 



172 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

absolute pledges and affirmations on the other, nothing 
whatever had been done even to prepare Franklin to 
move, that there had been a deliberate intention not to get 
him ready, and not to have him move at all. Franklin was 
" without reserve." Yet, Cox was there with 7,000 vete- 
rans, with whom he would gladly have directly moved upon 
the field, or as a reserve to any force that was thus moving. 
Nearly or quite 7,000 of Sturgis's division were there, and 
these could as readily have been sent out as the division 
of Cox. Franklin "was without ammunition." Yet, 
McClellan, as he himself had affirmed, had an abundance 
of ammunition, and had been absolutely commanded, and 
had as absolutely promised, not to send any into the 
field not abundantly furnished with ammunition. Franklin 
"was without transportation." Yet, as the master of 
transportation affirmed, the means of transportation were 
abundant in Washington, and Franklin or McClellan 
could, at any moment, have had all that was needful by 
simply " asking for it." Franklin "was without reserve, 
without ammunition, and without transportation," simply 
because McClellan deliberately intended that if he moved 
at all he should go out in this identical state, a condition 
in which he could have been of no use anywhere. Can we 
wonder that when General Halleck was informed that 
General Franklin was at Anandale in that state, and with 
no intent to go any farther, he charged McClellan to his 
face with open and flagrant disobedience to orders ? In 
any military country on earth but this, any General who 
should be thus guilty would be promptly tried at court 
martial and shot. On the 28th, for example, General 
Halleck sends this telegram : " Not a moment must be 
lost in pushing as large a force as possible towards Ma- 
nassas, so as to communicate with Pope before the enemy 
is reinforced." At this moment, aside from thousands of 
other forces not designated, those of Franklin, Cox, and 
Sturgis, as above designated, with large forces at Falmouth, 
were under McClelian's immediate command, and all in a 
movable condition. Yet all, in the face of such orders as 
the above, were deliberately held back. 

McClelian's telegram to the President, August 29th, 
and his message through Franklin on the same day, de- 



GENERAI- POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 73 

mand special notice here. " I am clear," he says to the 
President, "that one of two courses should be adopted; 
first, to concentrate all our available forces to open com- 
munication with Pope ; second, to leave Pope to get out 
of his scrape, and at once to use all our means to make the 
capital perfectly safe." Learning from Washington that 
the army of Virginia was suffering from want of provisions, 
he directs Franklin to write to General Pope that if he 
will send a cavalry escort to Alexandria, General McClellan 
will, on their arrival, " have all the available waggons at 
Alexandria loaded with rations for your troops, and all the 
cars also," The army of Virginia, of whom the above was 
said, and to whom the above message was sent, an army 
which was within twenty-five or thirty miles distance from 
McClellan' s quarters, and was then in a death-grapple 
with superior forces, and in this condition was hunger- 
smitten, — this army, we must bear in mind, was an American 
army, and was composed wholly of McClellan's old com- 
panions in arms, or of men who had been trained and 
had acted under him ; and he was in full hearing of the 
thunder of the cannon by which these men were being 
slaughtered. To say that a commander under such cir- 
cumstances can coolly talk of such an army "getting out 
of its scrape" the best way it can, and can mock at their 
hunger by such a message as the above, — to say that such 
a man has, or can have, a human, an American, or a 
soldier's heart in him, is to belie human nature, to vilify 
American patriotism, and to slander the heart of every 
true soldier on earth. Multitudes of facts of the same 
character as the above might be adduced. But we for- 
bear. Of this we are perfectly confident, that no candid 
mind can take into full account all the facts of the case 
without coming to this immutable conclusion, that the dis- 
asters which did finally befall the army of Virginia are 
wholly attributable to one exclusive cause — a deliberately 
predetermined plan on the part of certain commanders, a 
plan carried out with remorseless fidelity, to withhold 
from that army the aid which it needed, and which was 
ordered to it ; not to co-operate with General Pope, or to 
obey his orders upon the field, but to leave him alone, and 
solitary, to the tender mercies of Jackson and Lee, and 



174 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

let the nation endure the consequences. There are, in the 
cold and gloomy recesses of certain minds, capacities for 
such plans and purposes as the above, and such capacities 
did undeniably exist in certain leading minds in the army 
of the Potomac. 

Retiretnent of General Pope. 

After the bloody and unfortunate battle of the 30th at 
Bull Run, and the orderly retirement of our exhausted and 
bleeding forces to Centerville, General Pope found himself 
at last in the presence of reinforcements which enabled 
him to turn round and boldly face his antagonist once 
more; the corps of Generals Sumner and Franklin having 
at last been sent forward thus far. While our army lay 
here, Lee made no attack in front, but attempted to turn 
our right by a movement by Chantilly, a village some five 
or six miles north of Centerville. At this place the enemy 
was assaulted by General Pope, and amid a terrible 
thunder-storm a battle was fought, with the advantage 
decidedly on our side. In this battle, aside from the loss 
of about 500 killed and wounded, we suffered an irre- 
parable loss in the deaths of Generals Kearny and Stevens. 
After this no fighting of any importance occurred, the 
army of Virginia being brought within the fortifications 
about Washington ; while General Lee was left free to 
carry out the second feature of his plan, the first, the 
capture of W^ashington, having been defeated, namely, to 
carry the war into Maryland. 

Having fully accomplished his mission, the saving of 
Washington, General Pope requested, and at length ob- 
tained, permission to retire from a command to which he 
was called in opposition to his own urgent request, and to 
reassume one at the West, where his services had always 
been appreciated. How many are to be reckoned among 
the killed, wounded, and missing in the army of Virginia 
while it existed under his command, only a proximate 
estimate can be made, no complete official returns ever 
having been published. The Confederates confess to a 
loss on their side of upwards of 15,000 men, and their 
estimates were never too high, being made, at the time, 
for effect upon the Southern mind. Our ^os^ from all 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 75 

causes, must have been considerably upwards of 20,000 
brave men. In the winding up of the campaign of this 
army, we have to confess, in a certain form, a second Bull 
Run defeat, — a defeat, however, in which nothing can be 
designated which is not most honourable to the army 
which suffered. Of the campaign of this army we would 
say that of no other campaign which occurred during the 
war is the national mind so little informed and so strangely 
misinformed as of this. With very few exceptions, we 
believe that our best read citizens, in common with the 
people generally, conceive, for example, that in this second 
battle of Bull Run General Lee actually met and defeated 
the united armies of Virginia and of the Potomac. What 
a different aspect is put upon the whole case when we 
become distinctly aware that even in this battle there were 
not 15,000 men from the latter army actually engaged, 
and in no other were there as many as 12,000. It is 
literally true that with the exception of this " little help," 
and in circumstances in which the army of Virginia might 
have had, and but for treasonable disobedience to orders 
would have had, the aid of at least 50,000 veteran troops, 
it was ruthlessly left to " tread the winepress alone; " and 
never did an army with more patient endurance and self- 
sacrificing fidelity pour out its blood for its country. 

In regard to the commander of this army, and it never 
had but one, we would say, that he is not the first eagle 
that has been " hawked at and killed by a mousing owl." 
General Fremont, to whom the Western Department is 
more indebted than to any other man, was suddenly cut 
short in his most brilliant career. Yet history, though 
the people more than surmised, does not tell us for what, 
or for whom, this was done. It was at the suggestion of 
General McDowell that all those railroad connexions be- 
tween the north and the south of Washington were perfected, 
connexions so beneficial during the war. While General 
McClellan was Commander-in-Chief, and confined by sick- 
ness in Washington, General McDovv^ell, as directed by 
President Lincoln, proposed a specific plan for the future 
campaign, a plan which if carried out with vigour would 
have insured the capture of Richmond, and the destruction 
of the Confederate army in Virginia, within the space of a 



176 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

few weeks. When our vast army was lying before Wash- 
ington "rooted and grounded in mud," and its commander 
was awe-struck with the fearful array of quaker-guns at 
Centerville, Fairfax, and Manassas, General McDowell 
submitted in writing a definite plan, not only for the 
bringing out of ours upon dry land, but for the capture of 
the Confederate army. When the removal of our army 
from the front of the enemy down to the Peninsula was 
determined on, General McDowell and other corps com- 
manders submitted a written protest against the measure. 
**For having, out of regard to the best interests of my 
country, dared to do such things," said General McDowell 
to us personally, " I, a ruined man, am hereunder the dark 
cloud which hangs over me." When General Pope, at the 
close of his campaign, reported in person to the General- 
in-Chief, the Secretary of War, and the President, *' Each 
of these high functionaries," said General Pope, " received 
me with the greatest cordiality, and expressed in the most 
decided manner his appreciation of my services and of the 
conduct of my military operations. 

" Great indignation was expressed at the treacherous 
and unfaithful conduct of officers of high rank who were 
directly or indirectly connected with those operations ; and 
so decided was this feeling, and so determined the purpose 
to execute justice upon them, that I was urged to furnish 
for use to the Government immediately a brief official 
report of the campaign." Notwithstanding these palpable 
facts, and notwithstanding a minor offender was after- 
wards punished, General McClellan was reinstated in full 
command of the army of the Potomac, and General Pope 
was sent in apparent disgrace to the Western Department. 
Yet, when history shall present the facts of this war as they 
were, it will be " read and known of all men " that no one 
of all our other campaigns was conducted with more 
consummate ability than this, and that to no General does 
the nation owe a deeper debt of gratitude than to Major- 
General John Pope. But for his m.asterly dispositions, 
watchful diligence, and tireless energy, the national 
capital would undeniably have been in the hands of the 
Confederates before a man would have been got up for its 
defence from the army of the Potomac. The object of 



GENERAL POPE AND THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA. 1 77 

Jackson's advance from Gordons ville across the Rapidan is 
obvious ; to wit, to seize the fords and bridges across the 
Rappahannock, and thus secure for the entire Confederate 
army an uninterrupted advance to Washington. Had this 
end been secured, or had General Lee been able to force a 
direct and immediate passage across the river last named, 
the army of Virginia would have been scattered before him 
as chaff before the whirlwind, and Washington would 
have been at his mercy. Nothing but General Pope's 
masterly dispositions, first north of the Rapidan, and then 
north of the Rappahannock, held back the advance of 
the Confederate army in its entireness from the 5th to 
the 30th August, and thus rendered it impossible for Mc- 
Clellan's slowness, arid the "treacherous and unfaithful 
conduct" of himself and certain of his subordinates to 
prevent the successful protection of Washington. When 
General Pope's plans, and the special dispositions and 
movements of his forces, shall become the subject of full 
and impartial criticism, none but very poorly read strate- 
gists and tacticians will pretend to discover any Sfi' cial 
defect in them, while all who understand the subjec: \^Ill 
award them their deep and almost unqualified admiration. 
No General ever conducted a campaign under greater 
embarrassments, or made a better use of the forces under 
his command. When, for example, Jackson made his 
detour round through Thoroughfare Gap to Manassas 
Junction, his object was to intervene between the army of 
Virginia and that of the Potomac, an^ to hold them apart 
until the arrival of Lee with his whole army, when both 
should fall, first upon Pope and crush him, and then turn 
upon the forces of the army of the Potomac, and crushing 
that, seize Washington. The plan of General Pope, on the 
other hand, was to throw his army between those of Jackson 
and Lee, and while the latter was coming up, to crush the 
former between his own and the army of the Potomac, and 
then, with both united, to fall upon Lee and crush him. 
The duty of Lee as a soldier, on the one hand, and of 
McClellan as a soldier and under absolute orders, on the 
other, is obvious. The duty of the former was to push his 
army with all possible dispatch to Jackson, that the plan of 
the Confederate commanders might have been a success. 

12 



178 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

That of the latter was to do all he possibly could to 
forward adequate reinforcements to Pope, and to perfect 
the dispositions requisite to consummate the plan which he 
had propounded. Lee did all that human energy could 
have done to reinforce Jackson. McClellan, on the other 
hand, did all he could to prevent adequate reinforcements 
reaching- General Pope, and to prevent all dispositions 
requisite to the carrying out of his plans. In the final 
result, Lee, while he did inflict bleeding wounds upon his 
antagonist, failed to crush either the army of Virginia or 
of the Potomac, and in his ultimate plan for the capture 
of Washington. General Pope, on the other hand, while 
treachery and disobedience to orders prevented his doing 
all that he had most wisely planned, did inflict terrible 
blows upon Jackson, rescued his hungry, weary, and bleed- 
ing army from the encircling folds of the entire Confederate 
forces, brought that army in order and safety to Centejville, 
where he found himself encircled with forces which his an- 
tagonist dared not meet, and thus placing an impregnable 
bulwark between the national capital and the Confederacy, 
rendered his campaign a glorious success. These facts are 
undeniably true of General Pope in the conduct of this 
campaign. When he had forces under line, forces adequate 
to the accomplishment of what was needed, his plans for 
the accomplishment of that end were faultless, and were 
executed with the quickness and force of the thunderbolts 
When new and unexpected exigencies arose, exigencies 
demanding new dispositions of his forces, his adjustments 
were of the promptest and most unerring character. 
When help was promised, expected, calculated upon, and 
not received, he never in a single instance, d la mode Mc- 
Clellan, stopped in his career, and did nothing but show 
his teeth at the supreme authorities, but instantly set about 
making the best possible use of the resources actually 
under his command. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GENERAL LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 

At the commencement of our civil war, the sentiment of 
the State of Maryland was almost exclusively with the 
South. It was from the first the fixed belief of the Con- 
federate authorities that the presence of General Lee with 
a large army, more especially if Washing-ton were pre- 
viously captured, would induce a general rising of the 
people in favour of the Rebellion. Failing in his direct 
attempt upon the national capital, the Confederate com- 
mander still believed that by an advance into this State 
his army would be so increased that he might yet capture 
Washington by moving upon it from the north. With this 
end in view, he turned aside from General Pope, moved 
his army to Leesburg, crossed it over the Potomac near 
that place, and on the 6th September concentrated his 
forces at Frederick, meeting with no resistance anywhere. 
From this place he issued a most stirring and seductive 
address to the people of Maryland, calling upon them to 
rally around his standard, and thereby vindicate for them- 
selves and their State their proper and desired place in 
the sisterhood of the Confederacy. While the people of 
Maryland were in heart as disloyal as General Lee sup- 
posed, they had, by the hard instruction of adamantine 
facts, learned discretion. Hence the appeal of the Con- 
federate commander, while it excited universal sympathy, 
failed to draw volunteers around his standard, the number 
of desertions from his ranks surpassing the increase from 
enlistment. For this reason General Lee, before our army 
approached to drive him on, determined to retire back to 
Virginia, and had, as we shall see, given his orders 
accordingly. 



l80 THE AMERICAN REBEIXION. 

When the fact of General Lee's invasion became known 
to the authorities in Washington, General McClellan, the 
army of Virginia being blended into that of the Potomac, 
was put in full command of all our forces, now known 
again as the army of the Potomac. The mission of 
McClellan now being the expulsion of Lee, all our forces 
in and about Washington, at and in the vicinity of Fort- 
ress Monroe, and within calling distance everywhere, were 
placed under the command of the former, the only excep- 
tion to the above grants being that none of the forces 
under General Heintzelman, now left in command at 
Washington, should be withdrawn without leave of the 
President. 

What should have been done in the circumstances. 

Before advancing to a consideration of the course which 
events actually did take, we will stop for a moment to 
consider the course which they would have taken under 
the directions of any able strategist. The army which 
General Lee had with him in the State of Maryland con- 
stituted, with few exceptions, the entire army of the Con- 
federacy that had been collected in the State of Virginia ; 
all the important corps and divisions, and all the leading 
Generals in that army, being present with General Lee, 
and this army, even according to the extravagant estimate 
of General McClellan, numbered, while at Antietam, less 
than 100,000 men. What was the amount of available 
forces under the control of our commander? When General 
McClellan moved out from Washington, he took with him 
an army quite 100,000 strong. At the same time, up- 
wards of 100,000 veteran troops were left behind under 
General Heintzelman, as stated to us by himself per- 
sonally, for the defence of the national capital. As con- 
firmatory of these statements, we notice the fact that on 
the 30th September, thirteen days after the battle ot 
Antietam, General McClellan officially reported as pre- 
sent for duty in the army of the Potomac 173,775 men. 
During this month, he had lost, at Harper's Ferry, South 
Mountain, and Antietam, between 30,000 and 40,000 men. 
At the same time, there was left two full corps, quite 30,000 
men, in the vicinity of Fortres'=' Monroe. Nor will any one 



GENERAL LEE's INVASION OF MARYLAND. l8l 

doubt the practicability of assembling at Harrisburg, from 
the Western Departments, in time to have taken an effec- 
tive part in the campaign, at least 30,000 regular troops. 
Such was the field before our commander, and such were 
his resources on that field. What would a strategist have 
done under such circumstances ? By his advance into 
Maryland, General Lee had most fully uncovered Rich- 
mond, just as Buonaparte uncovered Paris by moving his 
own between the armies of Blucher and Scwartzenburg, in 
his attempt to fall upon their communications. A strate- 
gist in General McClellan's circumstances would, first of 
all, have turned his thoughts towards Richmond. Under 
the command of Generals Wool and Keyes, there were 
present in the Peninsula about 30,000 men. By sending 
20,000 men to Yorktown, and ordering General Wool to 
move thither with all his available forces. General Keyes 
would have marched into Richmond with about as little 
loss as General Lee suffered in his advance from Leesburg 
to Frederick. The capture of Lee would then only have 
been a question of time. 

Suppose, however, that the first movement determined . 
on had been upon General Lee. What would have been 
the single end which a strategist would have proposed 
here? Not the expulsion of Lee from Maryland and 
Pennsylvania, but the prevention of his return to Virginia 
on the one hand, and the capture of his army on the other ; 
and all movements and dispositions would have been 
ordered with exclusive reference to this one single end. 
In moving out from Washington, his left would have been 
advanced to Harper's Ferry, and at least 40,000 men 
would have been stationed there. His centre and right, 
the former kept in supporting distance with the force first 
designated, would have been extended in the direction of 
Baltimore and Frederick. Having thus placed an impas- 
sable barrier between Lee and Richmond, nothing now, 
in the matter of direct assault, would have been hurried. 
Every available force from every part of the country 
would have been, with all possible dispatch, hastened to 
the scene. Those from the east and south would have 
been brought up directly to the army of the Potomac. 
Those from the west would have been hastened on to 



1 82 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Harrlsburg- ; while volunteers, as in the case of the in- 
vasion of Burguoyne, would have been concentrated at the 
same point. As soon as all was in readiness — and all could 
have been done in a few days — our great army would have 
drawn its folds around the invading force and crushed it. 
Not a division of General Lee's army would have escaped 
into Virginia. We very cheerfully submit the above sug- 
gestions to the verdict of our countrymen and the world. 
We boldly affirm, what we did affirm at the time, that had 
ordinary strategic wisdom controlled our military councils 
at Washington at this time, the termination of this Mary- 
land campaign would have been the collapse of the Rebel- 
Mon, the life of the Confederacy being indissolubly linked 
with the existence of the army of General Lee. 

What General McClellan arid our ijiilitary auihorities did 

propose. 

In the presence of this golden opportunity, an oppor- 
tunity which almost never occurs to a commander during 
the progress of the ages, what did General McClellan and 
our military authorities propose to do ? Just this, and 
nothing more. Not to inflict any positive injury upon the 
Confederate army at all, much less to capture it, but 
simply to prevent the capture of Washington and Balti- 
more, and the invasion of Pennsylvania, and to drive the 
invading force out of Maryland. Such is the specific in- 
terpretation which McClellan himself gives of the plan 
under consideration. "The movement from Washington 
into Maryland," he says, "which culminated in the battles 
of South Mountain and Antietam, was not a part of an 
offensive campaign. Its object was to preserve the 
national capital and Baltimore, to protect Pennsylvania 
from invasion, and to drive the enemy out of Maryland. 
These purposes were fully and finally accomplished by 
the battle of Antietam." In other words, a set of unruly 
cattle had broken through our inclosures. The object of 
our movement upon them was, not to hurt, capture, or 
pound the cattle, — compassionate creatures that we were! — - 
but to head them, and get them out of our fields, put up 
the fence behind them, and let them do as they might, 
and break into our inclosures again as opportunities might 



GENERAL LEE*S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 83 

present themselves. We blush with shame for our country 
when we call to mind the fact that such a mind as that, for 
so long a period, planned our campaigns, and determined 
the movements of our great armies. 

The campaign as conducted by General McClellan. 

The carrying out of the plan under consideration was 
a very plain and simple affair. All that our commander 
had to do was to select from the immense forces around 
him an army out-numbering that of General Lee, to pass 
up between him and Baltimore, and thus head him back 
towards the sacred soil, to follow him at a respectful dis- 
tance, to strike him only when he should stop or move too 
slow, and to continue the process until the enemy had 
passed over from ours into his own borders. Historians 
greatly err in their representations that the forces led by 
General McClellan in this campaign were selected from two 
wearied and dispirited armies. That of the Potomac had 
had full two months' quiet rest and recuperation. We, of 
course, except the small part that had acted with General 
Pope. The army of Virginia had had several days of severe 
marching, and two of terrible fighting. The perfect order 
in which it came off from the bloody field of Bull Run, how- 
ever, evinced anything but dispiritedness and demoraliza- 
tion. Neither army had endured hardships not common to 
all regular armies in times of war. No General had ever led 
a better army, or one better able and prepared to do and 
to dare, than that led by General McClellan when he went 
forth to drive General Lee out of Maryland. The army 
led forth on this mission, the forces under Colonel Miles 
at Harper's Ferry included, amounted, according to its 
commander's reckoning, from 110,000 to 120,000 men. 
At Antietam, he had, as he officially states, a force of 
87,164 men. Quite 14,000 arrived the next morning. 
Add to these the 11,583 captured at Harper's Ferry, and 
what had been lost at South Mountain and other places, 
and the number remains as above stated. 

In moving out from Washington, the march of our 
army was very slow, averaging about six miles a day. 
The reason assigned for this was the uncertainty of the 
enemy's whereabouts and plans. In th^ early advance a 



1 84 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

difference of opinion obtained between Generals Hallecl 
and McCIellan, not, as Mr. Swinton states, in regard to the 
rapidity of the movements of the latter, but in respect to 
the disposition to be made of the forces under Colonel 
Miles at Harper's Ferry; the former requiring- that they 
should be left where they were, and the latter that they 
should be united with his forces. If the final object of the 
campaign was the capture of General Lee's army, then the 
last thing that should have been done was the abandonment 
of the fundamental strategic point under consideration. 
The force at this point, instead of being removed, should, as 
we have stated, and as it might, have been rendered at least 
40,000 or 50,000 strong. If, on the other hand, the object 
of the campaign was as General McCIellan understood it, 
viz., to drive Lee out of Maryland, then the last place that 
should have been retained was Harper's Ferry. Every ford 
and bridge over the Potomac and north of Leesburg should 
have been left free for General Lee to retreat over. Gene- 
ral Halleck, the Secretary of War, and the President, did 
believe that heavy blows, at least, should fall upon General 
Lee while he was being driven out of Maryland. Hence 
they unitedly contended that the troops at Harper's Ferry 
should be reinforced, and not removed. When the plan 
of McCIellan was fully understood, and when it was too 
late to remedy its defects, full power was given him over 
the forces under Colonel Miles. Nor did General Halleck 
ever complain, as General McCIellan and Mr. Swinton 
state, that the latter moved too fast, or too far from Wash- 
ington. "In respect to General McCIellan going too fast, 
or too far from Washington," says General Halleck before 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War, "there can be 
found no such telegram from me to him. I telegraphed him 
that he was going too far, not from Washington, but from 
the Potomac ; that he was pushing forward his right too fast 
relatively to the movements of his left, not that the army 
was moving too fast or too far from Washington. The only 
telegram from which the story that General McCIellan was 
complained of as " moving too fast, and too far from Wash- 
ington," is the following, bearing date September 14th: 
" Scouts report a large force still on the Virginia side of the 
Potomac, near Leesburg. If so, I fear you are exposing 



GENERAL LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 85 

your left flank, and that the enemy can cross in your 
rear." 

On the 1 2th the advance of General McClellan's army, 
after a severe skirmish with General Lee's rear, entered 
Frederick. While here, September 13th, our commander 
obtained a copy of a general order from General Lee, an 
order giving, in detail, the direction which every corps and 
division of his army was to take in a general retreat from 
Maryland back into Virginia. The plan of General Lee in- 
cluded two essential features, both being distinctly stated or 
implied in the order — the capture of Miles's force at Har- 
per's Ferry, and the concentration, after that, of his entire 
army at some point where a general battle might be safely 
risked with our army, future movements to be determined by 
the results of said battle. The carrying out of his plan 
necessitated General Lee to divide his army into two 
nearly equal parts, the parts to be located for a time on 
opposite sides of the Potomac, and at a distance of from 30 
to 40 miles, as the forces must march, from each other. In 
accomplishing the plan of capturing Harper's Ferry, Jack- 
son moved with four divisions of Lee's army, those of Ewell, 
A. P. Hill, Jones, and Lawton, moving with these through 
Boonsborough, and crossing the Potomac at Williamsport, 
and advancing upon Miles from the west. The divisions 
of McLaws and Walker were to move down from Lee's 
left ; the former to take possession of Maryland Heights 
on the west side of the river, and the latter to cross at 
Cheek's Ford below, and seize Loudon Heights south of the 
junction of the Shenandoah and the Potomac rivers. Thus 
quite one-half of Lee's army was to be concentrated at this 
one point. The other portion, under Longstreet's command, 
the divisions of Anderson, D. H. Hill, and Stuart's cavalry, 
were to move to Hagerstown and Boonsborough, to which 
points Jackson was to return, after having disposed of our 
forces at Harper's Ferry. Such were the startling facts 
which suddenly presented themselves to our commander. 
His main forces were at Frederick, Franklin's corps at the 
south-west of this point, between it and the point where 
Jackson, McLaws, and Walker were to meet. Nearly mid- 
way between the distant points where the divided forces of 
Lee were to be located^ ^tid but about 23 miles directly in 



1 86 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

front of ours under McClellan, lay Sharpsburg, connected, 
as we shall see, with Frederick by highroads over which 
our army could march by day and by night. All this is 
rendered absolutely evident by the following fact, stated in 
his report, by General McClellan himself: " Humphrey's 
division of new troops," he says, " in their anxiety to par- 
ticipate in the battle which was raging when they received 
the order to march from Frederick at about half-past 3 
p.m. on the 17th, pushed forward during the entire night, 
and the mass of the division reached the army the following 
morning." By a single day's march then, McClellan might 
have occupied Sharpsburg, and rendered the reunion of 
Lee's separated forces an utter impossibility. This, un- 
deniably, is just what a skilful strategist would have done. 
Miles would have been commanded to hold out to the last 
possible moment, and this for the purpose of keeping Jack- 
son, McLaws, and Walker at Harper's Ferry, until the move- 
ment to Sharpsburg was perfected. This end having been 
accomplished, the last white elephant that Jackson and his 
coadjutors would desire to have upon their hands would 
have been Miles and his forces, and all hopes of reuniting 
their divided armies would have totally died out of the 
minds of Jackson and Lee both. 

Another and perhaps a still better movement was prac- 
ticable to General McClellan. While he had sent a small 
portion of his forces after General Lee, he might with his 
main army have moved by his left, have crushed the divi- 
sions of McLaws and Walker, have rescued our forces under 
Miles at Harper's Ferry, and then have moved, the distance 
being but 10 or 12 miles, on the east side of the Potomac 
up to Sharpsburg, and there interposed his army between 
those of Jackson and Lee. Each movement would have 
been equally fatal to the' Confederacy. What did Gene- 
ral McClellan do under such propitious circumstances? 
Instead of making any attempt whatever to interpose his 
army between Jackson and Lee, instead of advancing his 
main army in the direction of Harper's Ferry and crushing, 
as he might have done, McLaws and Walker, who were 
moving thither on the north and east side of the Potomac, 
he directed his main forces on the highroads which the 
main army of Lee had taken, all of that army but the divi- 



GENERAL LEe's INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 87 

sions under McLaws and Walker; and he advanced his right 
wing so as to compel Lee to move on through Hagerstown 
and Boonsborough to Sharpsburg ; Franklin being left to 
care for Harper's Ferry. The advance of our army upon 
the heels of General Lee being more rapid than the Con- 
federate commander had anticipated, brought on a severe 
engagement between Franklin's advance and the force of 
McLaws at Crampton's Gap, and that of McClellan's 
centre and right at Turner's Gap, in South Mountain. 
In the engagements at both these points, the enemy was 
finally driven back with great loss ; that on our side also 
being quite severe. Our loss in both engagements 
amounted in killed and wounded to 2,101 ; that of the 
enemy from similar causes being nearly as large, with the 
addition of nearly 2,000 prisoners. These engagements 
occurred on the 14th, and by the evening of that day the 
passes of the mountains were in our hands. Franklm failed 
to push on to Harper's Ferry in time to save Miles ; whose 
force, he having been previously killed, surrendered at 
8 a.m., the enemy capturing 11,583 men, 73 guns, 13,000 
small arms, 200 waggons, and a vast quantity of tents and 
camp equipage. By 8 a.m. of the 15th, Franklin learned 
from the cessation of the firing that Miles's command had 
surrendered, and so informed General McClellan. 

The victory of South Mountain had an extactic effect 
upon the mind of General McClellan, and greatly inspirited 
his army. At 3 o'clock in the morning of the 15th, being 
fully aware that he had defeated the forces of D. H. Hill, 
Longstreet, and McLaws, and that they had disappeared 
in his front, he sent the following telegram to General 
Halleck : *' The enemy disappeared during the night ; our 
troops are now advancing in pursuit." At 8 o'clock the 
same morning he sends the following telegram : " I have 
just learned from General Hooker, in the advance, who 
states that the information is perfectly reliable that the 
enemy is making for Shepherdstown in a perfect panic, 
and General Lee last night stated publicly that he must 
admit they had been shockingly whipped. I am hurrying 
everything forward to endeavour to press their retreat to 
the utmost." At 10 the same morning he telegraphs 
again : " Information this moment received completely 



1 88 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

confirms the rout and demoralization of the Rebel army. 
General Lee is reported wounded, and Garland killed. 
Hooker alone has over i,ooo more prisoners. It is 
stated that Lee gives his loss as 15,000." When these 
telegrams were circulated throughout the country, the 
nation, of course, was electrified. This excitement was 
somewhat cooled by the intelligence which immediately 
followed, that we had lost in prisoners, in one body, nearly 
12,000 men, making our admitted loss in killed, wounded, 
and missing, nearly as large as the falsely reported one of 
General Lee. General McClellan had just before assured 
the authorities that Lee had in his army at least i :o,ooo 
men. Yet, our commander absolutely assures us, a few 
hours after the battle, that an affair between merely our 
advance and the rear of the enemy, an affair in which not 
30,000 men had been engaged on either side, and in which 
we had lost but 2,000 men, had involved the utter panic, 
rout, and demoralization of that great host. More than 
this. At early dawn after that battle, General McClellan 
gives a professedly authentic report of the substance of the 
speech which his wounded rival had publicly made imme- 
diately after the battle, and of Lee's estimate of his losses 
in the same. The amazement which we felt, at the time, 
at the credulity of our military authorities, and of the 
nation, in crediting such absurd reports, and the disesteem 
then induced in our mind for the commander who sent 
them forth as reliable verities, have not yet suffered any 
diminution. 

Grand movement proposed and urged by General Heintzelman 

at this crisis. 

When General Heintzelman learned of the facts per- 
taining to our victory at South Mountain, and of the retreat 
of General Lee, he proposed to the military authorities in 
Washington that he should be permitted with 60,000 of 
the more than 100,000 troops in the city to move into 
Northern Virginia and seize all Lee's communications 
across the Potomac, our forces then to close in upon him 
from all directions, and rapture his army. Of the wisdom 
of the plan proposed, and of its full success had it been 
adopted, there can be no reasonable doubt in any reflect- 



GENERAL LEE's INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 89 

ing mind. This plan, however, was rejected by the Secre- 
tary of War, under the advice of the military authorities 
around him ; and to General Lee, after the battle of An- 
tletam, was kindly granted an unimpeded retreat back to 
his old position. We make these important statements on 
the authority of General Heintzelman himself. 

The judgment which ive must form of Gmeral Lee in view 
of the facts before us. 

The carrying out of the general order issued to his 
army by General Lee on the 9th September, involved, as 
we have seen, the separation of that army into two nearly 
equal parts, and the separation of the same at a marching 
distance of from 30 to 40 miles from each other. To 
accomplish this separation required nearly a four days' 
march on the part of the corps of General Jackson, and 
I a latteral movement of the divisions of McLaws and 

, Walker in the direct front of our army. While this sepa- 

ration placed the Potomac between the divided parts of 
his army, General Lee was fully aware that by a march 
of 23 miles over highroads. General McClellan could 
place his army between the parts referred to, and render 
their reunion impossible. What must we think of a 
General that in such circumstances will thus divide his 
army in the presence of a hostile force known to be 
superior to his own ? We must regard him as being what 
Buonaparte would have called an " ass of a General ; " or 
we must suppose him one of the great commanders who 
perfectly understands and holds in utter contempt his 
antagonist. No other alternative is left. On one or the 
other of these hypotheses we must explain the fact that 
General Lee, in the immediate presence of our army, first 
placed the Chickahominy and then the Potomac between 
the divided parts of his own army. No General of com- 
mon understanding ever did thus divide his army in the 
presence of a General whom he respected. 

What should have been and what ivas done immediately after 
the battle of South Mountain. 

By 9 o'clock on the morning of the 17th, Franklin 
made known to McClellan the fact of the capture of our 



I go THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

forces at Harper's Ferry. At this time, it was known to 
our commander that Jackson, McLaws, and Walker were 
at Harper's Ferry, and that Lee, with the remainder of 
his army, was retreating- through Boonsborough towards 
the Potomac. At this time, a march of but from six to 
eight miles on a highroad would have brought Franklin's 
corps to Sharpsburg. Directly in front of McClellan, on 
another road, at not more than six or eight miles distance, 
lay Keedysville, a place about half-way between Sharps- 
burg and Boonsborough. By ordering Franklin to move 
by a forced march upon the former, that place would have 
been in our hands before Lee could have advanced as far as 
to the latter, and Franklin would have been free to act 
from that fundamental position, as exigencies might re- 
quire. By moving his main forces, not after Lee to 
Boonsborough, but directly to Keedysville, McClellan 
would have anticipated Lee at the latter place, or would 
have struck him there when on his line of march, — the 
most unfavourable condition of an assailed party possible ; 
and in connexion with Franklin moving- out from Sharps- 
burg, would indeed have produced an utter " panic, rout, 
and demoralization of the Confederate army." Of not 
one of these great and palpably manifest advantages did 
our commander avail himself On the other hand, while 
Franklin occupied the day in moving up in front of Sharps- 
burg, McClellan followed directly after Lee in a detour 
round through Boonsborough and down the valley of 
Antietam ; Lee, late in the afternoon, taking position on 
the heights of Sharpsburg, west of the valley designated 
and the stream of the same name, and but about two 
miles east and north of the Potomac ; while our army took 
post in front of Lee, and on the east side of the stream 
and valley referred to. Thus matters stood at the close of 
September 15th, and thirty-six hours prior to the famous 
battle of Antietam. 



THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM. 

The battle of Antietam was one of the most bloody 
which occurred during the war, and, as far as the 
Union cause is concerned, one of the most useless that 



GENERAL LEE S INVASION OF MARYLAND. IQT 

ever occurred in the history of war. To the Confederates 
it secured a safe passage across the Potomac back into 
Virginia, and an undisturbed repose of nearly three months, 
in which to repair their losses, reorganize their forces, and 
make full preparation for any new exigencies that might 
arise. To them, certainly, this was not a lost battle. To us, 
its final results were a succession of disasters which issued 
in a second invasion of our territories, and another equally 
bloody battle. 

At lo o'clock on the morning of the 15th Septem- 
ber, General McClellan electrified our military authorities 
at Washington, and the nation, by the announcement that 
in the battle of the previous day General Garland had been 
killed and General Lee wounded, and that the wounded 
Confederate commander and his army, with the confessed 
loss of some 15,000 men, were flying, panic-stricken, 
routed, and demoralized, through Boonsborough towards 
the Potomac, and that his own army were on the heels of 
the flying foe, in hot pursuit. This retreat and pursuit 
were continued without interruption, our forces capturing 
some 250 prisoners at the place last named, until, a little 
past the middle of the afternoon, when on the heights in 
front of Sharpsburg, our wounded Confederate, with his 
panic-stricken, routed, and demoralized little army, sud- 
denly turned round, faced his pursuers, and boldly defied 
them to advance another inch in their hot pursuit. 

Every commander of ordinary intelligence would have 
perceived at once that a more propitious opportunity to 
annihilate an enemy never presented itself to any General 
than Providence had now thrown into the hands of General 
McClellan. More than one half of the Confederate army 
was far away on the other side of the Potomac. Here, in 
a corner where defeat was utter annihilation, were, as our 
commander well knew, merely Longstreet's corps and the 
division of D. H. Hill, with a majority of Stuart's cavalry; 
a force which had never during the day been able to stand 
for a single hour against our advance. What did prudence 
demand under the circumstances, our army having pre- 
viously marched but some ten or twelve miles ? We should 
bear in mind that A. P. Hill's division, after an almost quick- 
step march of seventeen miles, arrived at about the same 



192 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

hour in the afternoon of the battle of Antietam, and imme- 
diately entered and did effective service in that battle. 
Our forces, after their march of ten or twelve miles, could 
certainly have, at least, opened the conflict that afternoon 
and evening. None but a General of the feeblest capacity 
would have deferred the general assault, in full force, after 
the dawn of the next morning. Our commander, however, 
as he had ever done before, as soon as the great prize 
stood out in full view before him, forgot that he had a 
gun. With him, it was far more safe to fight the whole 
of Lee's army with the whole of his own, than to fight less 
than one-half of that army with two-thirds of his own. 
Hence the whole of what remained of this afternoon, and 
all of the next day, a slight affair just at evening excepted, 
were spent in getting up reinforcements, and making pre- 
paration for the conflict which was to open in terrible 
earnestness on the morning of September 17th. This was 
all that General Lee desired ; and the interval allowed him 
was well improved in getting his whole army together, 
raising his entrenchments, digging rifle-pits, locating his 
batteries, and distributing his forces. Hence, by the morn- 
ing of the day of the battle, within the Confederate lines 
" there was a place for every thing, and every thing was 
in its place;" General Lee, by the evening of the 15th, 
having fully recovered from the wounds which he had 
received on the preceding day. Nor was our commander 
idle. By the evening of the i6th all his forces which were 
expected to take part in the coming battle had come up, 
and all the corps and divisions were in the positions from 
whence they were to advance upon the enemy, and all the 
batteries of heavy guns were fully prepared for the death- 
doings to which they were assigned. The battle, it should 
be understood, was to be wholly defensive on the part of 
the enemy, and as exclusively offensive on our part. 

Relative amount of the hostile forces engaged in this battle. 

In considering the case of any considerable battle, one 
of the first questions which interests the reader is the rela- 
tive amount of the hostile forces engaged in the conflict. 
Of the number present on our side there can be no doubt; 
that number, as officially stated by General McClellan, 



GENERAL LEE S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 193 

and with unquestionable correctness, was 87,164 men. 
General McClellan gives the number of the Confederate 
army present on the occasion as 97,445, a number s^iven 
as the result of information obtained by General Banks in 
Washington prior to the battle, and gained from deserters, 
prisoners, and spies. The account bears upon its face the 
clear marks of utter incredibility. How could General 
Banks have obtained such specific information about the 
exact number of men Lee had at Frederick, and then just 
how many he had lost by death, wounds, capture, and 
desertion, on his way from that city to Sharpsburg? If 
the estimate had been given in general terms, it would not 
appear so absurd as it now does. Pollard, in his "Southern 
History," says of this battle, " It was fought for half the 
day with 45,000 men on the Confederate side, and for the 
remaining half with no more than an aggregate of 70,000 
men." No Confederate account intimates that their army 
was larger than this, and, in general, all give a lower esti- 
mate. Lee, when he claims to have fought the battle with 
40,000 men, unquestionably refers to what he had under 
his command in the early part of the day. It is quite safe, 
then, to state that our army on the field outnumbered the 
Confederates as 87,000 to 70,000, or, more near the truth, 
to 6o,ooo, 

The Battle-field. 

To understand the field on which this battle was fought, 
let the reader conceive a village standing upon a some- 
what elevated position, which may be called, for the want 
of a more definite term, a plateau, or hill. Several miles 
west of the village comes down the Potomac, running with 
a serpentine course, almost due south. Near a village 
called Shepherdstown, the river takes an east and south- 
east course for several miles, and then turns south again, 
passing by Harper's Ferry. About one mile east of 
Sharpsburg passes down, from the north, Antietam Creek, 
which passes centrally through a valley which takes its 
name from the creek referred to, the creek entering the 
Potomac some distance above the point where the river 
takes the last southern direction designated. Above the 
river, and for some miles above Sharpsburg, the creek is 

13 



194 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

too deep and muddy to be forded, and is crossed by four 
stone bridges. The southern one, on the turnpike road 
from Frederick, and which is joined by the road from 
Harper's Ferry, crosses the stream about a mile to the 
south-east of the village. About one mile north of this is 
the bridge on the highroad from Keedysville and Boons- 
borough. About one mile farther up the stream is the 
third, and at about the same distance still farther north is 
the fourth, bridge. Directly from the north of the village 
comes down the highroad from Hagerstown. On the 
heights in front, and to the south-east and north-east of 
Sharpsburg, General Lee had located his army, with Long- 
street on his right, D. H. Hill in the centre, J. Jackson with 
his divisions on his left, and McLaws in reserve. Lee's 
right extended about one mile below the road which 
crosses the south bridge designated. At his extreme left, 
about one mile west of the Hagerstown road, and near a 
bend in the Potomac, were stationed Stuart's cavalry. Of 
our line, Burnside occupied the left; Cox's division, on his 
extreme left, being located south of the Frederick turnpike. 
Porter with his corps was in the centre, in front of Sharps- 
burg. On our extreme right was Hooker with his corps, 
and between him and Porter was Sumner, in command of 
his own and Hamilton's corps. Franklin, not yet up, was 
to ^ct as exigencies should demand. Such was the field, 
and in general the distribution of the forces of these two 
armies on the evening of September i6th. The line of 
General Lee, from his extreme right to the position oc- 
cupied by Stuart's cavalry, was upwards of four miles; the 
length of ours being quite as great. 

The Battle. 

The three bridges directly in front of our line were too 
strongly defended and too much exposed to the fire of the 
enemy's batteries to be taken by a direct assault. It was 
accordingly determined that Hooker, followed by Mansfield, 
should cross the stream at the upper bridge, which was 
wholly unguarded, and after turning Lee's left, should so 
press his centre that the other portions of our army 
might effect a passage over the bridges in their front. 
The passage over the upper bridge Hooker and Hamilton 



GENERAL LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 95 

1 

made on the evening before the battle, and after a severe 
conflict with the enemy's left advance occupied positions 
more than one mile west of the place of crossing. The 
battle, which opened with such fury the next morning, and 
ended with the closing in of the darkness of the night 
following, — the battle, as conducted on our part, has very 
singular peculiarities, which seem to have been taken from 
the first battle of Bull Run. The latter was fought by 
sending regiments in succession, regiments who should 
fight for a time and then retire for the advance of others. 
In the battle of Antietam, very much the same thing was 
repeated by army corps. At early dawn, Hooker, sus- 
tained by Mansfield, assailed Jackson, whose men were 
greatly aided and protected by woods and outcropping 
ledges of rocks, and whose batteries, advantageously 
located, made fearful slaughter among the assaulting force. 
Notwithstanding all these difficulties, our men, after various 
advances and reverses and waverings first of ours and then 
of the Confederate lines, at length pressed the enemy back 
quite across the Hagerstown road. Jackson now brought 
up his reserves under Lawton, and fell upon our forces with 
such fury that they were driven back in a quite demoralized 
condition. In an attempt to rally his men, Hooker was 
wounded, and soon after had to retire from the field, — a 
great calamity to the Union army at that crisis of the 
battle. Mansfield's corps now advanced, took the place of 
Hooker's, and after meeting with similar successes and 
reverses, was driven back, with its commander mortally 
wounded and in as bad a condition as that of its pre- 
decessor. At this juncture Sumner advanced, and after 
successes and reverses like those who had gone before 
him, found himself, with the loss of near 5,000 men, in 
as crippled a condition as his predecessors. Thus, in the 
language of Mr. Swinton, '* three out of six corps of the 
army of the Potomac, and they the strongest, had been 
drawn into the seething vortex of action on the right; and 
each in succession, while exacting heavy damage of the 
enemy, had been so punished as to lose all offensive 
energy ; so that noon found them simply holding their 
own." All accounts of the battle agree in the above 
statements. In the course of the afternoon. General 



196 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Franklin, contrary to the original plan to have him act 
upon our left, was sent forward to re,2:ain what Hooker, 
Hamilton, and Sumner had gained and lost. In his early 
advance Franklin was successful ; but when he had 
formed his line and organized his forces to capture the 
rocky woodland west of the Hagerstown road, he was 
recalled by Sumner, who held command of our right. 
Thus the battle, in this part of the field, the principal part, 
ended with the setting in of darkness ; we having this 
advantage, that our forces occupied the largest portion 
of the battle-field in this quarter. 

On our left, Burnside delayed his advance until after 
I o'clock, at which time all of Lee's right had been with- 
drawn to support his left, the single division of General 
Jones, 2,500 strong, excepted. With a heavy loss, the 
bridge was carried, and two hours later, the crest above ; 
one battery, from which our line had suffered not a little, 
being also taken. At this time, when matters looked dark 
for the Confederates in this part of the field, the division 
of A. P. Hill, which Jackson had left behind at Harper's 
Ferry to receive the surrender of our forces there, came upon 
the ground, and being united with the troops under Jones, 
assumed the offensive, recaptured the battery, and forced 
Burnside back over all the ground he had gained, to the 
shelter of the cliff beyond. Thus the battle closed all 
along the line. On our right, we had gained considerable 
ground, but had been brought to a stand. On our left we 
had also gained much ground, but finally were forced back 
over the ground we had gained, Burnside' s forces, how- 
ever, remaining on the west side of the bridge which they 
had carried. Both sides claimed the result as a victory, 
each for itself, and with equal truth and equal error ; the 
battle, as almost or quite all authorities now agree, being 
a drawn one. To understand more fully the tactics of our 
commander in this battle, we state the following fact, not 
before related by any historian. At the time when General 
Burnside began to be pressed back. General Pleasanton, 
with 4,000 veteran cavalry, and upwards of 20 pieces of 
field artillery, stood on the heights east of the bridge over 
which Burnside had passed, and observed, the whole scene 
being perfectly visible, that between him and the Potomac 



197 

west of both armies, there were no Confederate forces 
whatever. He accordingfly went to General McClellan, 
and asked leave to pass his cavalry over the bridge, and 
take the enemy in flank and rear, and thus roll up the 
whole of the right wing of General Lee's army ; there being 
an abundance of troops present, and unengaged, to fill the 
vacancy which would be made by the advance of the cavalry 
force. This movement, which would have rendered inevi- 
table the utter rout, if not capture, of the right wing of the 
Confederate army, General McClellan absolutely prohibited. 

Essential errors m the conduct of this battle. 

There was one very grave error common to the com- 
mands of both armies, an error which writers who have 
visited the field and carefully examined its localities have 
all noticed. At the right of Hooker's position when 
he opened the conflict, and on Jackson's left, there is an 
elevated position which completely commanded our right 
and the Confederate left. Had Hooker, or Sumner after 
him, occupied this position, and planted his batteries there, 
it would have been utterly impossible for Jackson to have 
continued where he was for a single hour, and our right 
would have advanced with very little loss. Had Jackson 
occupied in force this same position, his batteries would 
have enfiladed the whole field over which our right must 
have advanced, and rendered a successful assault of the 
Confederate left and, consequently, of their whole line, 
impossible. That position, visible to all, was, strange to 
relate, wholly neglected by our commanders during, and by 
those of the Confederate army to near the close of, the day. 
So vain is human foresight ! This oversight is more dis- 
creditable to the Confederate Generals than to ours, the 
position having been visible to them all the while they 
were laying their plans and distributing their forces for 
the battle ; whereas the advantage presented could not 
have been known to ours until after they had come upon 
the field. 

The sending forward of our forces ** in driblets," as 
General Sumner expressed it — that is, a corps at a time — 
as was done all day upon our right, where the main issue 
was joined, was a capital error not only of the grossest 



198 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

but of the most uncommon character. All our corps but 
the two of Burnside and Porter should, as General 
Sumner also affirmed, have been at once pushed over after 
Hooker and Hamilton. Our extreme right should then 
have passed round and closed up upon the Confederate 
left, and rolled it up on their centre and right, and thus 
cornered up Lee's whole army between the Potomac and 
the Antietam valley and creek. No well-informed tactician 
will question the fact that such a use of our army would 
have resulted in the destruction or capture of that of 
General Lee. As it was, the battle occasioned a great 
loss to both sides, with no decisive advantage to either. 
The retreat of the Confederates over the Potomac was not 
caused by this battle, but would have resulted had no 
battle been fought. 

In our judgment, also, no attack across the lower bridge 
and upon Lee's right, while it should have been threatened, 
to induce an extension of his line in that direction, should 
have been contemplated or made. Suppose that both 
wings of the Confederate army had been turned, — an event 
which could in no contingency have occurred until late in 
the day, as the battle was conciucted. In that case, a safe 
retreat would still have existed on the highroad from 
Sharpsburg, south-west, to the crossings of the Potomac 
at Shepherdstown. On the other hand, the divisions of 
Porter's corps should have occupied our left and centre, 
and Burnside with Franklin should have been united with 
Hooker, Mansfield, and Sumner in bearing down with a 
crushing force upon the enemy's right and right centre. 
In that case, our extreme right, in closing round upon 
Lee's left, would have seized the Shepherdstown road, and 
cut off all retreat from the Confederate army. The battle, 
thus conducted, would have been in full accordance with 
the tactics of Moltke, Buonaparte at Ulm, and Washington 
and his French allies at Yorktown, and we should never 
have had a second invasion of Maryland. 

Union and Co7ifederate losses in this battle and in the 
Maryland cainpaign. 

General McClellan gives officially, and we have no 
reason to question the correctness of his report, — gives 



GENERAL LEe's INVASION OF MARYLAND. 1 99 

officially, we say, our loss in the battle, in killed, wounded^ 
and missing, as 12,469, and in the whole campaign in 
Maryland as 15,220. Among the killed and wounded 
are included, as General McClellan states, ten Generals, 
and a vast number of officers of lower grades. If we add 
to these the 11, 583 who surrendered at Harper's Ferry, and 
the 250 subsequently captured and parolled by Stuart, our 
total loss in this campaign will be 27,053 men ; quite as 
many as the army of Virginia lost under General Pope. 
The Confederate official reports give the Confederate loss in 
killed and wounded in the Maryland battles as 10,291 men. 
The reports of Lee's corps and division commanders give 
their aggregate loss in killed and wounded as 11,241. 
If we estimate their loss in prisoners and desertions at 
5,000 or 6,000 men, probably the estimate would not be 
far from correct. We must bear in mind that, in both the 
battles of this campaign, we were the assailing party, and 
fought the enemy under circumstances m which nothing 
but a miracle could have prevented our losing three in 
killed and wounded where the enemy lost two. To admit 
the fact that our loss in killed and wounded was thus 
much greater than that of the Confederates, while it re- 
veals the courage and endurance of our soldiery, presents 
nothing whatever to their discredit, or to that of their 
commanders. 

Events after the battle. — The exit of McClella7i. 

The character of generalship is always most clearly 
manifested by what is done after a battle, and especially 
after a victory. After the battle, September 19th, 3.10 
a.m., General McClellan sent this telegram to Washington : 
" Our victory was complete. The enemy is driven back 
into Virginia. Maryland and Pennsylvania are now safe." 
On the morning after the battle he received an accession 
of about 14,000 fresh troops. Of those present with him 
on the field, Porter's corps, acting as the reserve, had 
hardly fired a gun, while the corps of Franklin and Burn- 
side had done little until the after part of the day. All of 
Lee's forces, on the other hand, had, the most of them, 
been engaged during the whole day, and all the strength 
he had was well known to have been put forth. Yet, our 



200 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

commander, notwithstanding some of his leading Generals 
strongly advised a renewal of the conflict on the morning 
of the 1 8th, suffered the day to pass away with hardly a 
reconnoissance. On the morning of the 19th he awoke to 
find that his adversary with his army was safely over the 
river, and was there coolly awaiting an advance on our part. 
The reasons which General McClellan assigns for not renew- 
ing the battle on the morning of the i8th were, the weari- 
ness of his troops, the indecisive results of the conflict on 
the day preceding, the demoralization of two of his largest 
corps, the doubtful issue of a second battle, and the dis- 
astrous results of a defeat of his army. He failed wholly 
to weigh duly the palpable facts and considerations which, 
on the other side, demanded the promptest action, as, for 
example, that now at least his army far outnumbered that of 
the enemy; that he had upwards of 25,000 fresh troops, 
while Lee had none ; that however weary a part of his 
forces might be, all of Lee's were in a far more exhausted 
condition ; and that while a defeat of our army would be a 
great calamity to us, a defeat of Lee's would not only be 
the annihilation of his army, but the ruin of the Confede- 
rate cause. Such considerations, however, had no weight 
with our "Young Napoleon," who was found at 8 o'clock 
on the morning of the 18th at Keedysville, some four or 
five miles from the battle-field. Napoleon always, so he 
said, slept upon the field where his army had fought the 
day previous. 

But not only did McClellan fail to avail himself of the 
advantages which Providence put into his hands on the 
morning after the battle, but in the face of palpable facts 
demanding an onward movement, of the encouragements, 
exhortations, entreaties, and absolute orders of the autho- 
rities at Washington, he suffered the remaining portion ot 
September and all of the month succeeding, the best part 
of the year for the movement of armies, quite forty days, to 
pass by before he could be induced to pass his army over 
the Potomac, and then his movements were as slow and 
measured as if he and his army had been lame in their feet 
and palsied in their limbs ; the night of the 7th November 
finding him at Rectortown, where and when he received a 
dispatch from Washington superseding him and appointing 



^GENERAL LEE*S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 20I 

General Burnside in his place, — one deadening- incubus 
being thus removed from the breast of the nation. 



CHARACTER OF THE EVENTS WHICH OCCURRED BETWEEN 
THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM AND THE RETIREME^T OF 
GENERAL McCLELLAN. 

When General Lee had crossed the Potomac, he kept 
his army at no great distance from the river until ours 
had passed over, his head-quarters being in the vicinity 
of Charlestown and Winchester. He waited here, un- 
doubtedly under the expectation that as our army was 
crossing, he might fall upon it, when one part was on 
the north and the other on the south side of the river. 
Our army, however, was in little peril of such a contingency 
as that while it remained under the command of Mc- 
Clellan, the only peril to which it was subject under him 
being dissolution from inaction. To understand fully the 
character of the events which occurred during the period 
under consideration, two fundamental facts must be set in 
the clearest light before the mind. We refer to 

The relative strength and location of the hostile forces during 

this period. 

The location of General Lee's army we have indicated 
with sufficient distinctness. The army of the Potomac was 
divided into two great central forces : those with General 
McClellan centrally located at and near Sharpsburg, with 
small bodies on the river at different points from Williams- 
port down to Harper's Ferry ; and those under General 
Heintzelman in the vicinity of Washington. Lee's army 
consisted of the forces which he took with him in his 
retreat from Maryland and the very small reinforcements 
which he may have subsequently received from Richmond. 
No rational estimate will give him an army of over 70,000 
men. ^ What was the strength of the army of the Potomac 
at this time ? On the 2o^h September, three days after 
the battle of Antietam, General McClellan, as certified to 
by the Adjutant-General of the United States, S. Thomas, 
officially reported the army of the Potomac as consisting 
of 293,798 men. Of these 164,359 were present for du^y, 



202 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

24,315 were sick, on special call, or under arrest, and 
105,124 absent by leave. This force does not include the 
command of General Wool at Fortress Monroe and those 
left behind in the Peninsula under General Keyes, nor the 
corps, about 9,000 strong, under General Dix at Baltimore. 
On the 30th of this month this army, according to official 
reports made and certified to as above, consisted of 173,745 
present for duty, 28,458 sick, etc., and 101,756 absent by 
leave; making a sum total of 303,959 men. On the 20th 
of the next month, according to a like report, 207,036 were 
present for duty, 42,298 sick, etc., and 91,275 absent on 
leave ; the aggregate being 304,609 men. One fact pecu- 
liarizes this army from all others that ever existed — the 
comparative number of its absentees, this number uniformly 
equalling quite one-third of the whole army. This army 
presents the spectacle of the continued average absence 
of 100,000 men, all doing nothing and yet receiving the 
full pay of men on the field. What must have been the 
character of the commander of this army and of the 
military authorities over him ? Nowhere else but in 
connexion with the command of this one General can such 
appalling facts be found. We must bear in mind also 
that the number of absentees was greatest just at the 
very time when all the forces the nation could command 
were most imperiously needed, and when the commander 
of the army in which this evil assumed such monstrous 
proportions was most beseechingly calling upon the mili- 
tary authorities for reinforcements, and was charging said 
authorities with delinquencies in duty for withholding the 
aid asked for, it being uniformly true that his absentees 
far out-numbered all the forces he required. 

What ought to have been done under the circumstances. 

We must bear in mind that during all the fifty days 
which intervened between the battle of Antietam, a period 
in which, aside from quite 30,000 men at Baltimore and in 
the Peninsula, there were always present for duty in the 
army of the Potomac from 164,000 to 207,000 men, and 
never in the army of General Lee over 70,000, Richmond 
still remained completely uncovered ; and a force 70,000 
strong moving out from Washington, with a simultaneous 



GENERAL LEE S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 203 

advance on the part of McClellan, would have rendered 
the retreat of the Confederate army to that city impossible, 
and its capture a certainty. A two or three days' march 
of 70,000 men from Washington would have enabled them 
to reach Warren ton, where they would have had full com- 
mand of all General Lee's lines of retreat. 

Two most propitious opportunities here once more 
presented themselves to the commander of the army of 
the Potomac and our military authorities — a move upon 
Richmond, and the capture of the Confederate capital, 
while its protecting- army was too far away to do anything 
for its defence ; or, what would have been better, a direct 
and simultaneous movement upon this army and the 
destruction of it, leaving Richmond to fall of itself, as it 
must have done after that. Nor did it require great mili- 
tary capacity to discern these advantages, the facts being 
so palpable that nothing but uncommon stupidity could 
have overlooked them. Stupidity prevailed, however, 
and the opportunities were lost, and, as a consequence, 
hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of treasures 
were lost to the nation. 

The course which events did take tinder the circumstances. 

In contemplating the course which events did take 
during the interval under consideration, this fact will not 
fail most deeply to impress the mind of the thoughtful 
reader, that nothing whatever was done, or appeared to 
have been contemplated, to capture Richmond while it 
remained thus visibly uncovered, or to capture, or even 
to inflict a serious wound upon, the army of General Lee 
while it lay openly exposed to deadly blows from our over- 
whelming forces. As soon as the Confederates had gone 
over the river, on the other hand, one thought seemed to 
have taken exclusive possession of the mind of our General 
in command — the providing of clothing and shoes for his 
great family for the coming fall and winter. As the 
spectre of the overwhelming power of his antagonist had 
done before, so now the idea of the approaching cold and 
frost chilled his military ardour, blighted his courage, and 
froze up all his activities. Hence his cries for clothing 
and shoes for his men and horses for his cavalry were 



204 ti:e a:v:ee.icax rebellion. 

now just as great and bitter and constant as were his former 
calls for reinforcements. To every exhortation and entreaty 
and absolute order to cross the river and assault the enemy, 
he replied by sending back the monotonous call for shoes, 
and coats, and vests, and pants, and army blankets, and 
horses. Shortly after the battle of Antietam, for example, 
the President visited our army at Sharpsburg, and finding 
the troops full of ardour, and in a good condition for an 
advance, gave, through General Halleck on his return to 
Washington, this order, bearing date October 6th : " I 
am instructed to telegraph to you as follows : ' The Presi- 
dent directs that you cross the Potomac, and give battle to 
the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move 
now, while the roads are good.' " To this General 
McClellan replies by making an inquiry about the troops 
that he might be reinforced by on the two routes, one of 
which, after passing Winchester, he must take; and request- 
ing the Commander-in-Chief to make special inquiries 
about the Alexandria and Leesburg and Manassas Gap 
railroads. On the next day he sends down the following 
cool enquiry: "What arrangements are in progress in 
regard to supplying the army with hospital tents ? Are 
there any on hand in Washington ? If so, be pleased to 
let me know the number. If there are none, how long 
would it take to have them manufactured and delivered 
here in considerable amount, say three or four thousand?" 
By just such replies, all entreaties and orders for an on- 
ward movement were bluffed off until the 2nd November, 
forty-six days after the battle of Antietam, when the pas- 
sage of his army over the river was perfected. He then, 
without an attempt to strike the enemy at all, moved 
slowly down on the east side of the Blue Ridge ; General 
Lee moving leisurely in parallel lines down the valley 
beyond, until our advance approached Warrenton, when, 
November yth, at Rectortown, the command of the army 
was passed over to General Burnside. During all the 
preceding interval General McClellan appears to have 
formed no definite plan whatever for the future conduct of 
the campaign. On the other hand, he states definitely in 
his communications that when he should arrive at Warren- 
ton he would be able to determine whether his army could 



GENERAL LEE S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 205 

be supplied by means of the Orange and Alexandria Rail- 
road. If this could not be done, he should transfer his 
army to the Fredericksburg road, or back again to the 
Peninsula. What was to be hoped from such a General ? 
Yet he would have us understand that his removal was a 
great calamity to the nation, because he was then about 
to attempt an important movement against General Lee, 
as the old scientists all died just at the moment when they 
were on the eve of discovering the philosopher's stone. 

Concluding reflections upon General McClellari as a military 

commander. 

In our introductory remarks upon General McClellan 
"we expressed the opinion that neither he nor his successor, 
General Halieck, ever revealed a capacity in planning a 
campaign to do anything but to blunder, and that neither 
of them ever blundered upon a plan that ought to have 
been adopted. Nothing in the history of General 
McClellan's military life Indicated in the remotest de- 
gree that he ever had, in his own mind, a well-digested 
plan of operation. All his seeming plans were only guesses 
in the dark. When lying among the quaker-guns at Ma- 
nassas, he guessed that it would be best to transfer his army 
to the Peninsula ; but what specific movements should be 
made after he was there, he appeared to have had no idea 
at all. After he had lain for a time on the Chickahominy, 
he guessed again that a change of base from that place 
to some point, what one he knew not, on James river, 
would improve his situation, and accordingly made the 
change to the point on which he happened to fall ; but what 
should be done when the situation was changed, of this he 
seemed to have been utterly ignorant. When at Harri- 
son's Landing, he guessed a third time that his situation 
would be improved by removing his army from the north 
to the south side of the river. When passing down from 
Sharpsburg south, he guessed that he would be able to 
determine, on his arrival at Warrenton, whether he could 
support his army by means of a single railroad, — not con- 
sidering at all what might be done in addition by means 
of waggons, the only mode of supplying armies known sixty 
years since ; and that if this means should he inadequate, it 



206 THE AMERICAN REBELLIOX. 

would be best to transfer his army to the Fredericksburg 
Road, or to the Peninsula. Beyond the idea of such 
chanq'es, his mind seems never to have, in reality, planned 
anything. 

In executing a campaign and ordering a battle his 
imbecility is equally manifest. Here almost everything 
was entrusted to his subordinates. Not one of the seven- 
days battles of the Peninsula was fought under his immediate 
direction. The same was true of those at South Mountain. 
At Antietam, the battle commenced in earnest at early 
dawn ; yet he did not leave his night quarters, and look 
over the field, until quite 8 o'clock in the morning. This 
is the only battle which, for the most part, really did accur 
under his immediate direction, and this, as we have seen, 
is, on his part, one of the worst conducted battles known 
in history. When he moved his army, he did so with un- 
exampled slowness, and stood still for the greater portion 
of his time, and that for the seeming reason that he did not 
know what steps should next be taken. 

His weakness— --and he never seemed to have conscious- 
ness of power to accomplish anything worthy of a soldier, — 
his conscious weakness always resulted from one and the 
same cause, an appalling over-estimate of the amount of the 
hostile forces in his immediate front, those forces uniformly, 
in his terror-stricken imagination, outnumbering his own as 
three to two, and commonly as two to one. What was worst 
of all in his manai^ement of his forces was the fact that while 
he was continuously calling upon the authorities to reinforce 
his weakened army, he was perpetually diminishing that army 
by leave of absence to such an extent that a real increase 
of his forces by any reinforcements which could be sent 
him was nearly or quite impossible. Of what use is it 
to send 10,000 men to a commander, for example, when on 
the arrival of them 10,000 are sent away on a visit to their 
homes ? He bitterly complained that McDowell's corps 
was not sent to him, when his absentees nearly or quite 
outnumbered that corps. When, in reply to his bitter 
complaints that he was not adequately reinforced, the 
President asked him to give an account for the vast 
number of his absentees, McClellan coolly replied that he 
thought that at least one half of said absentees might be 



GENERAL LEE S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 207 

properly called back to the army. Yet he made no effec- 
tive call for that purpose, but depleted his army by this 
very means, as we have seen, to the number of upwards 
of 101,000 men. 

In his example of want of respect for authority, and 
of palpable disobedience to absolute orders from his 
superiors, he is undeniably, we judge, without a parallel 
in history. One of the specific reasons assigned by Gene- 
ral Scott for his resignation of his post as Commander-in- 
Chief, was the utter disregard manifested for his wishes 
and orders. A command received on the 6th October, to 
pass the river at once and fight the enemy or drive him 
south, was coolly met, as we have seen, by the inquiry how 
soon some 4,000 hospital tents could be made or furnished, 
while no attempt was made to obey that order during the 
space of about twenty-five days. Full twenty-five days 
elapsed after he received an absolute order to transport 
his army at the shortest period possible from the Peninsula 
to the vicinity of Washington before a single man was 
embarked. These are but examples of his relations to 
the supreme authorities of the nation. McClellan, in short, 
was the spoiled child of the Union army, and come what 
might, his will was his law. 

No commander of ancient or modern times ever made 
such a show, or ever moved amid such " pomp and circum- 
stance " as did our "Young Napoleon." The sons of 
ancient kings "prepared but fifty men to run before them." 
The staff of General McClellan numbered between 2,500 
and 3,000 men, and more than one-third of these were 
uniformly at home on leave, visiting the ladies, and that 
during the period which intervened between the invasion 
of Maryland and his removal from command. On the 
30th September, for example, he reported of his staff 
1,171 present for duty, 266 on special duty, sick, or under 
arrest, and 1,037 absent. 

No General was ever petted by a Government as was 
General McClellan. The idea propagated by the opposers 
of the Administration, that it was jealous of his growing 
reputation, and therefore withheld from him promised aid, 
is one of the absurdest and grossest slanders ever uttered. 
When McClellan, for example, forwarded his flaming dis- 



208 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

patches after his victories at South Mountain, what was 
the prompt reply he received from the President ? It was 
this: "Your dispatches received. God bless you, and all 
with you. Destroy the Rebel army if possible." All that 
the President ever exhorted or commanded him to do was 
to act so that his reputation with the nation and the 
world might be "as ointment poured forth." No man 
ever had a brighter future opened before him, and no man 
ever commenced his career with the more unqualified and 
universal good-will of the Government and people, than 
was true of General McClellan ; and because, and only 
because, he utterly and hopelessly disappointed the just 
and fond expectations reposed in him, this must be said of 
him, that " he departed without being desired," 



CHAPTER XIIT. 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC UNDER GENERAL 

BURN SIDE. 

On the 8th November, 1862, General Burnslde very reluc- 
tantly assumed the command of the army of the Potomac. 
At this time this army, as officially reported on the 20th 
of the month preceding, numbered 304,609 men. Of 
these, 207,036 were present for duty, 42,298 were sick, 
etc., and 91,275 were absent. Whether General McClellan 
communicated the plan which he was about to put into 
operation, or kept the same concealed in his own mind, 
we do not know. Whether the new commander was, or 
was not, informed upon the subject, one fact must be con- 
fessed, that the plan which General McClellan affirms him 
self to have developed was the very plan which should 
have been adopted in the circumstances ; while that which 
General Burnside did adopt was one of the last that should 
then have been thought of. To understand the subject 
we must call to mind the fact that General Lee had, at 
this time, divided his army into two grand divisions, the 
first commanded by General Longstreet, and the second 
by General Jackson. Longstreet with his grand division 
was at Culpepper, while Jackson, with his, one division 
excepted, was, at quite a distance off, over the Blue 
Ridge in the valley of the Shenandoah. The plan of 
General McClellan, as he avows, his army being now in 
the vicinity of Warrenton, was, by a rapid march, to inter- 
pose between Lee's divided army. The carrying out of 
this plan with proper vigour would have secured the event 
intended, or would have brought on a general battle. The 
result in either case could hardly have been a matter of doubt, 
and would have been ruinous to the Confederate army. 

14 



210 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

General Burnslde, forgetting that the mission of his 
army was, not the mere capture of Richmond, but the 
overthrow of the army which defended the city, and over- 
looking the fact that his great prize was in his immediate 
presence, determined to transfer his army from its onl) 
true position and direction, to another line of advance, 
the very worst possible, excepting that originally selected 
by his predecessor. One of the most fundamental prin- 
ciples known in the science of war is that, in advancing 
upon an enemy, our line shall be so directed that, while 
our own communications shall be protected, we may seize 
those of the enemy ; that our point of attack shall be where 
he is weakest, and where our blows shall fall with the most 
fatal effect. All these conditions would have been most 
obviously fulfilled had General Burnside moved right on 
in the direction in which his army was then moving. In 
that case, his own communications and Washington itself 
would have been practically in his rear. Any attempt on 
the part of the Confederates to disturb his communications 
or attack the national capital must have been in the direc- 
tion of Fredericksburg, the most difficult line of advance 
possible ; while the enemy, if he should make an attack 
upon Washington, would approach it at the point where 
it was most impregnably fortified, and where the raiding 
force would be always exposed to be cut off and annihilated 
by the left wing of our army. As soon as our army, on 
the other hand, had arrived at Gordonsville, it would have 
completely commanded all the Confederate communica- 
tions on the north of James river, and as soon as our right 
wing should have passed over the river we should have 
held all his communications in every direction, that single 
one through Petersburgh excepted. In our closing up 
upon Richmond, then. General Lee would either be shut 
up in the city and captured there, or he would have made 
a precipitate retreat down the eastern shore of North Caro- 
lina, leaving the city of Richmond, and all west and north- 
west of the same, in our hands. 

In taking the Fredericksburg road or the Peninsula 
route, we, of necessity, advance upon a line where we are 
certain to receive the greatest annoyance and damage from 
the enemy, with the least sacrifice on his part, — where we 



THE POTOMAC ARMY UNDER GENERAL BURNSIDE. 211 

approach Richmond on the side where it is most strongly 
fortified, and where all its important communications are 
left perfectly intact ; on the side, consequently, where the 
most prolonged siege would be certain, and where egress 
for . a perfectly safe retreat is always open, when the 
siege can no longer be endured. By moving on either 
of these lines, also, Washington must be left so uncovered 
that we should have been necessitated to leave behind a 
protecting force almost as great as the one in the field. 
The first step of General Burnside, then, involved a funda- 
mental strategic error. The question which now arises is, 
How did he execute his own plan ? 

The ijnmediafe measures of General Burnside. 

After assuming the duties of his high office, General 
Burnside spent some ten days in re-organizing his army, 
and getting the mastery of his new situation. His first 
measure was to consolidate the six corps of his army into 
three grand divisions, General Sumner being placed in 
command of the first, General Hooker of the second, 
and General Franklin of the third. His plan was, to move 
from the position he then occupied to Fredericksburg, 
and to act from thence upon Richmond as circumstances 
might permit. His divisions, Sumner's in advance, were 
directed to move to Falmouth, on the north side of the 
Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg. The army was 
then to pass over on pontoon bridges to the city last-named, 
Sumner receiving specific orders '* not to cross." But here 
was the difficulty. Our army, before it moved, was near 
Warrenton, and the materials for the bridges were at 
Harper's Ferry. Arrangements were made between 
Burnside and Halleck at Warrenton, — arrangements, as it 
afterwards appeared, misunderstood by each, — by which 
the army and the materials for crossing the river were to 
be at Falmouth at the same time. As it was, Sumner 
arrived at the place designated on the 17th, and Hooker 
and Franklin two or three days later, while the pontoon 
train was a week later still in arriving. General Sumner 
was very desirous of taking possession of Fredericksburg 
at once, and expressed that desire to his superior in com- 
mand, there being then several fords just above the city. 



212 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

at the time, where our whole army, had it been necessary, 
might have crossed. General Burnside replied " that he 
did not think it advisable to occupy Fredericksburg- until 
his communications were established." This enabled 
General Lee to locate his whole army on the heights south 
of the city, and to erect there all the fortifications he 
desired, before our commander was ready to attempt a 
crossing ; full twenty days being spent in getting open the 
communications referred to. 

The ba!tle of Fredericksburg. 

What might have been done without firing a gun on 
the 17th November had become most palpably impossible 
on the nth, 12th, and 13th December following. What 
General Lee feared above all things at the first period 
mentioned, he as strongly desired on the second, namely, 
a crossing over of our army in front of his bristling 
fortifications. When, before any rumour of the results of 
the battle had reached us, we heard of the manner in 
which the laying of the pontoon bridges was resisted, we 
said to our pupils, and to not a few individuals in the 
community, that one of two things was true, — that Lee had 
retreated and left only his rear guard to delay our cross- 
ing, or that he was making a feigned resistance to decoy 
Burnside over ; and that if General Lee was, with his army, 
on those heights, a most disastrous and bloody defeat was 
just as sure to Burnside as anything future. Nothing bu 
the infatuation of patriotic ignorance can shield our com- 
mander from the voice of the blood of those 13,771 brave 
men so senselessly slaughtered in that presumptuous battle. 
It is to the credit of General Hooker that he required 
repeated and most imperative orders from General Burn- 
side before he would order his men across into the field of 
the dead. 

To form an apprehension of the field of battle, let the 
reader conceive of the Rappahannock as running for some 
distance an almost due east course, and then at the village 
of Falmouth, located on the north side of the river, turning 
a south-easterly direction. From one to two and a half 
miles below Falmouth, and on the south side of the river, is 
the city of Fredericksburg-. In the river, from one to two 



THE POTOMAC ARMY UNDER GENERAL BURNSIDE. 21 j 

miles west of Falmouth, Is located Beck's Island. Oppo- 
site, and just south of this island, commences a series of 
irregular heights running parallel with the river for the 
distance of about four miles, until they are broken by the 
valley formed by the Massaponase Creek. On these heights, 
which were capable of being impregnably fortified. General 
Lee located his army, and had diligently employed the 
twenty days allowed him by Burnside's delay in perfecting 
his defences, placing in position his 300 heavy guns, and 
locating his forces. This period Burnside had spent in 
perfecting his communications with the Potomac at Aquia 
village. By the loth December all was in readiness 
for the fatal crossing, which was favoured by the near- 
ness of the banks to the brink on the north side of 
the river. One entire day, the nth, was spent in laying 
down the pontoon bridges, the delay being occasioned by 
1 the hot fire of the sharpshooters located in the brick 

houses in the city, houses near the shore. These being 
dispersed by troops ferried over the river, by the morning 
of the 1 2th the micans of the passage of the army were 
perfected. Sumner's grand division passed over opposite 
the city, and deployed into the rising plain beyond for the 
purpose of storming the heights above them ; Franklin 
with his own grand division and one of Hooker's corps, 
about half the army, passed over about two miles below 
the city ; while Hooker with his other corps remained as 
a reserve. 

The most essential features of the plan of General Burn- 
side were that the first and most effective assault should be 
made by Franklin, who was to turn Lee's right, and having 
carried the heights near Massaponase Creek, was to roll 
up the enemy's line upon his centre and left, when Sumner 
was to advance and storm the remaining portion of the 
position. This was the only plan that presented the re- 
motest promise of success. The order to Franklin, how- 
ever, was so indefinite as to imply that he was to act as 
above stated, or to make a demonstration in his front, and 
wait for final orders. He and his two corps commanders 
adopted the last and cowardly exposition as the true mean- 
ing, and hence one half of the army did not even attempt 
anything effective during the day. The absolute dutv of 



214 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Franklin was, the meaning of his order being- uncertain, 
to have sent a currier to Burnside for definite instructions, 
which could have been done in less than one hour. Such 
acts, however, were not to be expected from such a General 
as Franklin, especially after "his master," McClellan, "had 
been taken from his head." Burnside, also, when he found 
that his intended instructions were not obeyed, should have 
hastened to his left, and seen that the vital movement was 
made ; at least, he should have sent a special and positive 
order to that effect. The only movement which rendered 
success possible was not made, and hence, if for no other 
reason, the disasters which everywhere followed. 

On our right, Sumner's division was deployed opposite 
a stone wall which ran along near the bottom of the heights 
in their front. Behind this wall Longstreet's forces were 
securely located, and shot down our men at their leisure, 
while the artillery above completed the death-doings of 
the day. Our only son held his company in one of those 
lines until he was hit by a rifle bullet, and was then thrown 
ten feet into the air by a large clod of earth hurled against 
his breast by a cannon ball which struck the ground near 
him. For some time he lay upon the spot where he fell, 
apparently dead. At length, a fellow officer, observing that 
his associate was still breathing, had him put into an am- 
bulance and sent across the river; that officer then going 
back to the ranks, probably to fall as his associate had 
done before him. Our son Hngered on till the next June, 
and then died from the internal injuries received as above 
stated, and when dying expressed his full satisfaction that 
his life had been sacrificed for his country. On the failure 
of Sumner's efforts. Hooker with his remaining corps was 
ordered over. After crossing the river and surveying 
the field around him. Hooker hastened back, and en- 
treated Burnside to call off his army, and not to continue 
the useless slaughter any further. Burnside was inflexible, 
and ordered an onward move. Hooker's corps then went 
in to be slaughtered as Sumner's had been. Thus ended 
this dreadful day. Through a strange infatuation, our 
commander determined to renew the battle on the next 
day. That determination was met by such an unanimous 
remonstrance from the Generals under him, tiiat he finally 



THE POTOMAC ARMY UNDER GENERAL BURNSIDE. 215 

desisted ; and after the two hostile armies had confronted 
each other for two more days, ours recrossed to their 
original position. 

Subsequently, General Burnside made an attempt to 
cross his army above Fredericksburg, and turn Lee's posi- 
tion by falling upon his communications, — the only proper 
movement which should have been attempted at all. 
When his army had arrived at the banks of the river, and 
when success seemed certain, crossing, and a further pro- 
secution of the enterprise, were rendered impossible by a 
fearful winter's storm and flood. Finding afterwards that 
leading Generals of his army had secretly leagued together 
for his removal, and had visited Washington to secure the 
result, he prepared a general order to dismiss or relieve from 
service Major-Generals Hooker, Franklin, Smith, and 
Brig. -Generals Brooks, Newton, Cochrane, Ferrero, and 
Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor. The President, however, after 
consultation, relieved General Burnside, appointed General 
Hooker in his place, silently relieved General Franklin, and 
General Sumner at his own request, General Burnside being 
continued as a Major- General in the army. 

That General Burnside was a pure patriot, an honest 
man, and an able corps commander, facts render quite 
manifest. That he had any capacity to plan and execute a 
great campaign, or fight a great battle, we have no evidence 
from any facts known to history. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MOVEMENTS IN TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, AND 
MISSISSIPPI. 

The appointment of General Halleck as Commander-in- 
Chief of all our armies, July 23rd, 1872, left General Grant 
in supreme command of our army, then concentrated at 
Corinth, Mississippi. The utter fruitlessness of our con- 
quest in the capture of that place soon became manifest 
by the events which followed. Our army, instead of 
attempting anything effective against the enemy, who had 
quietly retreated from the place, was, as we have formerly 
stated, scattered in various directions, and so located as to 
be rendered everywhere too weak to be of service to the 
Union cause. The Confederate army, intact, had moved 
south, and was soon ready to recommence operations. 
Through their cavalry under Forrest and Morgan, raids were 
everywhere made in the rear of our army, raids in which 
such places as Murfreesboro' and Clarksville, Tennessee, 
and Lebanon, Henderson, and Cynthiana, Kentucky, were 
captured, and with these several thousands of prisoners 
and an immense amount of provisions, military stores, 
and other property ; just what always occurs when places 
are taken by armies advancing on single lines into an 
enemy's country, and the hostile army escapes unhurt. 
Had Halleck merely shut up Bragg and Beauregard in 
Corinth, and confined them there with their forces, we 
might have been the raiders, and ultimately starved out 
the enemy. As it was, we, after capturing a place utterly 
useless to us, and after scattering our forces as stated, 
were powerless for offensive operations, while the enemy 
could swarm all around us, and inflict upon us almost any 
injuries he might desire. 



\ 



MOVEMENTS IN TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, ETC. 217 

During the month of June, General Buell left Corinth 
and moved in the direction of Chattanooga. General 
Bragg, now in supreme command, moved from Tupelo, 
Mississippi, and with his army raised by conscription to 
some 45,000 men, took post in Chattanooga before our 
army arrived there. Was it not a great gain to us to have 
secured, through the loss of thousands of brave men, a 
transfer of the Confederate army, and that with increased 
strength, from Corinth to Chattanooga ? We shall now 
be able to gain a full knowledge of the value of the con- 
quest referred to. General Bragg, after lying at the place 
last named long enough to induce a retirement from it of 
General Buell, determined upon a new invasion of Kentucky, 
his army being now nearer the State than ours. As pre- 
paratory to this campaign, he organised his army into 
three corps, commanded respectively by Hardy, Bishop 
Polk, and Kirby Smith. The General last named moved 
his corps from Knoxville over the Cumberland range into 
Eastern and Central Kentucky. Near Rogersville, he 
encountered and utterly routed a Union army nearly or 
quite as large as his own, an army under command of 
General Manson. Smith puts our loss at i,oco killed and 
wounded, and 5,000 prisoners, and his own total loss at 
500 men — a near approximation, no doubt, to the truth. 
He then entered in triumph, and with the shoutings of 
Confederate sympathisers, Lexington, and from thence 
moved through Paris to Cynthiana, where Louisville and 
Cincinnati lay, for some time, in appearance, at his mercy. 

General Bragg having thus completely turned General 
Buell's left and passed into his rear, now moved, with the 
main portion of his remaining corps, quite to the east of 
Nashville, and passing Glasgow, Kentucky, seized the 
Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which was our chief 
means of supply and reinforcements for our army, now far 
off at the south. At Mumfordsville, where the railroad 
crosses Green river, as he claimed, with a loss of 50 killed 
and wounded, he captured some 4,000 prisoners, as many 
muskets, with many guns and much ammunition ; we 
having previously lost in killed and wounded upwards of 
700 men. From thence he marched, nobody resisting, to 
Frankfort, the capital of the State, where, as General Lee 



2l8 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

did at Frederick, Maryland, he issued a flaming appeal to 
the people of Kentucky, and inaugurated a sham Govern- 
ment for the State, placing a feeble old man, Richard 
Harris, over it as governor. All this even Pollard admits 
to have been *' a pretentious farce." 

This invasion stirred the lethargy of General Buell. 
Leaving a strong garrison, September 15th, at Nashville, 
he marched to Louisville, 170 miles, in from ten to fifteen 
days, where his army was rendered by reinforcements 
about 100,000 strong. Here he remained, after the ex- 
ample of his prototype McClellan, until October 6th, to 
reorganise his army. Under the assurance that if he did 
not move his command would be taken from him, he 
moved with steadiness to Springfield, 62 miles from Louis- 
ville ; General Bragg harassing his advance, but not 
risking a battle, the object of the latter being to gain time 
for a safe retreat with his immense train, consisting chiefly 
of Union army waggons, which were very heavily loaded 
with spoils gathered up at our depots and in the State. 
At Perryville, General Bragg turned round, and with a 
part of his army faced our advance under General 
McCook. Here a battle was fought, in which the advantage, 
on the whole, was on the side of the Confederates, but 
which was terminated by the darkness setting in. General 
Bragg admits a loss of quite 2,500 men, but claims to have 
forced our army back for two miles, and inflicted upon us 
a loss of 4,000 men and 15 guns. General Buell admits 
a loss on our part in all of 4,348, — the real number, no 
doubt. General Buell has been greatly blamed for re- 
maining in his tent within hearing of the battle, a few 
miles distant, and not until 4 p.m. sending reinforce- 
ments, which when sent arrived upon the field only at 
nightfall. 

During the night, General Bragg drew off his forces, 
and never turned round again until he was safe back in 
Tennessee. In his retreat he left at Harrodsburg some 
1,200 of his sick and wounded, with 25,000 barrels of pork 
and other stores. Such, and justly so, as all candid 
minds most admit, was the deep dissatisfaction of the 
authorities at Washington with such a fruitless termination 
of this campaign, that, October 30th, General Buell was 



MOVEMENTS IN TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, ETC. 2'»2I 

relieved from command, and Major-General Rosecrans 
put in his place. 

There is but one place in which General Buell did 
effective service during- his entire command, and that was 
on the second day of the battle of Shiloh. Everywhere 
else he manifested an irrepressible reluctance to strike the 
Confederates but with feeble and ineffective blows, and 
everywhere acted as if he had a special mission to protect 
the persons and property of acknowledged Rebels, and 
particularly to enable them to hold fast to their slaves. 

It would seem that the progress of events in the his- 
tory of this war up to the time of which we are now speak- 
ing, must have revealed to our commanders in the field, 
and to the military authorities at our national capital, just 
wherein the great strength of the Confederacy did lie, 
and what was necessary to be done in order to destroy 
that power. The military eye of Europe looked on, saw 
just where this power lay, and the world wondered that 
our commanders and military authorities did not compre- 
hend the situation. Europe saw that the power of the 
Confederacy lay, not in Richmond, Nashville, Corinth, 
Chattanooga, or Vicksburg, nor in its seaports, but wholly 
in two armies — the one commanded by General Lee, and 
the other, at the time of which we are now speaking, by 
General Bragg; and that all we had to do was to wipe out 
these two armies, and the war was ended. With us, on 
the other hand, the great power under consideration lay, 
not in these armies, but in the cities and ports referred to. 
Hence our vast armies and navies and national resources 
were occupied and expended for years in vain endeavours 
to settle mere side issues, without a serious attempt to 
settle the two main ones upon which all others depended. 
On this account our war has no parallel in history. In all 
others, the issues of war have had but two centres, the 
locations of the hostile armies, each making the other its 
issue and the location of the other its centre. With us, 
the repossession of territory and the capture of all the 
enemy's strongholds was the first issue to be attended to, 
and the wiping out of the armies the very last, if that were 
thought of at all. Take the palpable facts of this Western 
Department in illustration. When the Confederates held 



230 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Central and Southern Kentucky, one thought held exclu- 
sive possession of the minds of our commanders, — not the 
capture of these scattered forces, which could most readily 
have been done, but the pushing of them out of Kentucky 
and Tennessee. When these forces were concentrated at 
Corinth, the capture, not of the enemy there, but of the 
mere position it occupied, became the exclusive aim of our 
authorities. When that post was occupied, two objects of 
supreme importance now presented themselves, objects 
neither of which was the Confederate army at Tupelo, just 
south of us, but Chattanooga, away off to the west, and 
Vicksburg at the south. Hence our great army, three or 
four times as numerous as that of the enemy, was divided 
into three parts ; one sent in the direction of Chattanooga, 
the other in the direction of Vicksburg, and the third was 
broken up and scattered about and located in distant 
localities, and in such small bands as to be powerless for 
anything, leaving the enemy perfectly free to make raids 
all around us, to break up our communications, to make a 
second invasion of Kentucky, and there to inflict upon us 
a loss of more than 20,000 brave men, and property to an 
untold amount. What were the results of the policy that 
was pursued ? After a campaign of more than a year 
subsequent to the capture of Corinth, having lost in such 
bloody battles as Murfreesboro' and Chickamauga, in 
marches, and sieges, by sickness and accident, not far from 
100,000 men, we found ourselves the trium.phant possessors 
of Chattanooga, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, with the 
Confederate army intact and strong as ever. We had 
succeeded in opening the Mississippi, and created thereby 
the necessity of keeping in garrisons, on its banks, 100,000 
men to keep it open ; but we had not settled a single issue 
of the war. 

Suppose, now, that when General Bragg had invaded 
Kentucky, all our forces south of the State had been turned 
upon his rear, and that for the purpose of preventing his 
return and capturing his army; we placing upwards of 
100,000 men between him and his 45,000 troops and 
Tennessee, — moving, at the same time, upon him from the 
north with all the regular and volunteer forces that could 
have been collected. We know well that in such a case 



MOVEMENTS IN TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, ETC. 221 

not a debris of that army could have escaped. We know, 
also, that that army being captured, all the Confederate 
States between the Mississippi and Savannah rivers, with all 
their strongholds and rivers, would have been at our mercy. 
So. at any time, if all our vast forces in this department 
had been concentrated upon this one army, with the abso- 
lute determination not to rest, nor let it rest, until it was 
swept out of existence, the same results as above indicated, 
our forces being so overwhelmingly superior to those of 
the enemy, must have followed in a very short period. 
Then the Carolinas, with all their ports, would have fallen 
at once Into our power, as our great western army would 
have turned to the east, where, as it entered Virginia and 
came up on Lee's rear, the only remaining army of the 
Confederacy would have been taken, and the Rebellion 
would have collapsed at once. 

MOVEMENTS OF GENERAL GRANT. 

It is with pain that we turn from such considerations as 
these, to notice the course which the campaign did take 
under the immediate direction of General Grant. From 
the time when the command of the Western Department, 
of Tennessee and Mississippi, specially fell into his hands, 
Vicksburg was the central object of all his aims. After 
the delay caused by the invasion of Kentucky by General 
Bragg had been terminated, our commander bent all his 
energies to the settlement of what he and most of our 
military authorities regarded as the main issue of the war. 
All things being ready, General Grant moved his main 
army from the Grand Junction to Oxford, Mississippi. 
While he lay here preparing to move upon Vicksburg, the 
Confederates, under General Van Dorn, did what might 
have been expected, their armies being left intact — made 
a damaging movement upon our communications. Holly 
Springs, on the railroad between Grand Junction and 
Oxford, had been made our present depot of provisions, 
arms, and munitions. Van Dorn captured this place, and 
with it nearly 2,000 prisoners and some ^4,000,000 worth of 
provisions and other property, which they carried off or 
destroyed before our forces arrived to retake the olace. 



22 2 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

By this disaster General Grant was, or supposed himself, 
necessitated to retrace his steps, move west to Memphis, 
and take his army down the river to Vicksburg-. 

The day following our disaster at Holly Springs, 
General Sherman moved from Memphis down the river, 
by our fleet, with our rig^ht wing, about 30,000 strong-, 
sailed up the Yazoo some twelve miles, and having landed 
his forces there, moved them up to attack Vicksburg on the 
land side. Deploying his army into line, he sent his 
men, as Burnside led his at Fredericksburg, directly upon 
the fortifications in his front. As was inevitable, about 
2,000 brave men were vainly slaughtered in the mad 
assault, the Confederates losing in all but 207. After 
obtaining leave to bury our dead and remove our wounded, 
General Sherman, all hope being abandoned of capturing 
the city by even a combined attack with the fleet from 
below, embarked his army, and sailed down to Mllliken's 
Bend. When he had returned to this point, his superior in 
command. General McClernand, arrived, and while waiting 
the coming of General Grant with our main army, made 
an expedition up the Arkansas river, and captured and 
dismantled Fort HIndman, taking there, as he reports, 
about 5,000 prisoners. Thus matters stood until General 
Grant arrived, and commenced the siege in due form. As 
the conduct of this siege belongs to the order of events in 
1863, we turn to consider our naval operations up to the 
close of the year 1862. 



CHAPTER XV. 
EXPEDITIONS ON THE SEABOARD AND OCEAN, 

Expedition to North Carolina. 

We have already noticed General Burnside's expedition 
into North Carolina. Others of greater or less importance 
now claim attention. August 26th, 1861, General Butler, 
with three 50-gun frigates, four smaller vessels, and two 
steam transports having on board 800 soldiers, sailed from 
Fortress Monroe on a secret expedition. At the entrance, 
through Hatteras Inlet, of Pamlico Sound, they captured 
Forts Hatteras and Clark, with 715 prisoners, 25 cannon, 
1,000 stand of arms, and a considerable quantity of pro- 
visions and stores. Such expeditions as these, while they 
affected little for the general cause, acted as irritants upon 
the surface of the Rebellion, and sent far more volunteers 
into the field against us than we captured from the enemy. 

Expedition to Port Royal, Sjtcth Carolina. 

On the 29lh October of the same year, an expedition 
of great importance sailed from the same point as that 
above designated. This expedition consisted of a land force 
of 10,000 men commanded by General T. W. Sherman, 
and a naval force under Commodore Dupont, consisting 
of the steam frigate Wabash, 14 gun boats, 22 first-class 
and 12 smaller steamers, and 26 sailing vessels. After 
a stormy passage our fleet approached Port Royal, South 
Carolina, and after proper soundings and reconnoissances, 
found the entrance to the harbour barred by a fort on each 
side, that on Hilton Head Island, called Fort Walker, and 
that on Philip's Island, named Fort Beauregard. On the 
7th November, at 9 a.m., the bombardment commenced, 
and presented one of the most sublimely awful spectacles 



224 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

of war. With Commodore Dupont on the Wabash in 
the lead, the fleet moved in due order, one vessel after 
another, first by Fort Beauregard on the right, each 
vessel delivering its fire and receiving that of the enemy 
in return, and then wheeling round, paid to and received 
from Fort Walker the same terrible compliments. The 
smaller gunboats at length found positions where they 
could deliver an effective fire at the weaker points of the 
enemy's positions, and where they were subject to very 
little damage in return. Thus the battle continued for 
about five hours, with dreadful carnage to the Confederates, 
and very little loss on our part. Finding all resistance 
vain, the forts were abandoned by their defenders, and left 
in our possession. In a short time, all the islands from 
the Tyler, which with Fort Pulaski commanded the en- 
trance to Savannah river, to the Edisto, some miles west 
of the entrance to Charlestown Harbour, fell into our 
hands. Our forces found these islands entirely abandoned 
by their white inhabitants. Some 7,000 or 8,000 slaves, 
all the efforts of their masters to induce them to leave 
proving vain, remained behind, and became independent 
labourers in the raising of Sea Island cotton, and finally 
owners, for the most part, of the soil which they 
cultivated. 

Aside from the occupancy of these islands as stated, 
and the establishment of a naval depot at Hilton Head, 
no improvement was made of the advantages we had 
gained, improvement at the time or during the war. At 
the time, both Charlestown and Savannah were unfortified 
on the land side, and either of them lay at the mercy of Gene- 
ral Sherman. Had he been reinforced by 10,000 or 20,000 
men from our vast army lying idle near Washington, both 
of these cities might have been permanently captured and 
held by our forces. Nothing of the kind, however, was at- 
tempted, or seems to have been thought of What is still 
more singular, and unaccountable but upon the hypothesis 
of a strange stupidity on the part of our military com- 
manders, not the least use, excepting as a mere naval depot, 
was made during the war of this most favourable poini 
aappui for a most eff"ective movement into the heart and 
centre of the Confederacy. But a few miles north of our 



EXPEDITIONS ON THE SEABOARD AND OCEANS. 2 25 

forts, there ran the great railroad between Savannah and 
Charlestown, and constituting- for a long time after we 
captured Knoxville the only available avenue of communi- 
cation between the Confederate States east and west of 
Savannah river ; yet even this road was never touched by 
our forces from the period when we took possession of 
Hilton Head until Sherman moved out of Savannah in his 
advance from Georgia into the Carolinas, a few weeks be- 
fore the surrender of Lee and Johnston. Such was the kind 
of foresight which characteriseJ the conduct of this war 
from its commencement to its close. The communications 
of the enemy seemed to have been, in the judgment of our 
commanders, sacred things which were never to be touched. 
When, in January 1863, we pointed out to President Lincoln 
the strange fact that this only remaining artery of com- 
munication between the eastern and western portions of the 
Confederacy, — when we pointed out the fact that this road, 
which lay almost in sight of our forces at Hilton Head, 
and always directly and readily accessible to them, had 
never been touched, his reply was that we took and held 
the place merely as a means of naval supply. That is, 
inasmuch as the post was held for one special purpose, it 
would be a sin to use it for any other, however important. 
So our military authorities seemed to have regarded the 
subject. Suppose now that the 100,000 brave men so 
stupidly lost in the Peninsula, in the army of Virginia, in the 
Maryland campaign, and at Fredericksburg, etc., had been 
sent down to Hilton Head, and while the army of the Poto- 
mac was confronting General Lee, this force at Hilton Head 
had moved out into the Carolinas, and after capturing 
Charlestown, Willmington, and Columbia, had, as Sherman 
finally did, moved up upon Lee's rear. Before the midsum- 
mer of 1862 the Rebellion would have been utterly wiped out 
in the Carolinas and Virginia, and all this with the loss of 
not over 30,000 men. God took wisdom from our military 
authorities, not to destroy our nation, but to make us the 
free people we now are. 

While our forces at Port Royal were engaged in reduc- 
ing Fort Pulaski, which fully commanded the entrance 
^ to Savannah river, Commodore Dupont sailed with a land 
orce to the coast of Florida, captured St. Augustine, 

15 



226 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Jacksonville, and other important places, together with 
the principal forts on that coast, such as Forts Clinch and 
Marion, McKree, Barrancas, and others, almost the entire 
coast of Florida being abandoned by the Confederates, 
and its most important ports occupied by the Union troops. 

EXPEDITION IN THE GULF OF MEXICO : CAPTURE OF 
NEW ORLEANS. 

During the autumn of 1861, General Butler, in com- 
mand of the department of New England, bent all his 
energies to raise a volunteer force for an expedition still 
farther to the south-west. New Orleans being his central 
aim. In the latter part of February 1862 he set sail 
with a large fleet commanded by Commodore Farragut, 
and a land force nearly 15,000 strong, to which afterwards 
was added a fleet of bomb vessels commanded by Com- 
modore Porter. This force first took possession of Ship 
Island, on the coast of Mississippi, and regained and garri- 
soned Fort Floyd, re-naming it Fort Massachusetts, on the 
same island. When all things were in readiness, the fleet 
and armament sailed up the Mississippi river, until they 
were stopped by Forts Jackson and Philips, located on 
opposite sides of a bend of the same about 75 miles 
above its passes. These forts were manned with 150 
heavy guns each. After the bombardment of these forts 
had continued for several days with no material results on 
either side. Commodore Farragut determined to run the 
gauntlet between the two forts and the batteries on the 
shores ; his fleet consisting, in the language of Mr. Greeley, 
" of 47 armed vessels, 8 of them large and powerful steam 
sloops- of war ; 17 heavily armed steam gunboats, 2 sailing 
sloops-of-war, and 21 mortar schooners, each throwing 
a 215-pound shell," — the whole number of guns and 
mortars being 310. As preparatory to the final passage, 
the obstructions in the river above the forts having been 
removed, the mortar sloops were towed up nearer Fort 
Jackson, and for several days continued such a fire upon it 
that it was almost disabled. At length, at i o'clock a.m. 
April .24th, the fleet, in three lines, the night being very ♦ 
dark, started on their perilous enterprise. When they 



EXPEDITIONS ON THE SEABOARD AND OCEANS. 2 27 

came within range of the fire of the forts, one of the most 
terrible scenes known in the history of war ensued, all the 
guns in the ships and in the forts and in the batteries 
doing all that could have been done by powder and ball 
and shell for mutual destruction, even the fish in the river 
being killed by the convulsion of the elements above and 
around them. While this scene on land and water was 
going on, the Confederate fleet, their fire ships being first 
sent down, came down and mingled in the strife, two of 
their vessels being powerful ironclad rams. The fight 
was as short as it was terrific, the morning revealing the 
hostile fleet in flames, or wrecked, and our main fleet 
safely above the forts. In the meantime. General Butler, 
landing some 6,000 men on Sable Island, 12 miles in the 
rear of Fort Philips, and landing them with small crafts 
on the main shore, joined our fleet at the quarantine above. 
The commander of the forts. Colonel Huggins, perceiving 
that all was lost, surrendered to Commodore Porter. Our 
armament now sailed up the river and captured New 
Orleans, the Confederate forces having first destroyed 
what cotton and sugar they could, retreating with the 
silver and gold in the banks and national treasury, and 
other movable stores. General Butler now assumed com- 
mand of this new department, and held the people in 
subjection to the national authority with great ability, as 
all admit, and, as some affirm, with an iron rule, until 
December nth, 1862, when he was superseded by General 
Banks. 

The above survey of our maritime operations evinces 
the fact that from Fortress Monroe all along the shores of 
the entire Confederate States we, by midsummer of 1862, 
held possession of almost all the most important points for 
assailing the Confederacy on its water side. At that time 
we, having absolute command of the ocean, and being pos- 
sessed of fleets capable of conveying any amount of force 
to any point desired, had only to land an army, 80,000 
or 100,000 strong, at Newbern or Port Royal, and the 
Carolinas, and with them, as we have shown, Virginia and 
its capital and army, would have been at our mercy. By 
landing an army 50,000 or 60,000 strong at any important 
point which we held on the coast of Georgia or Florida, 



228 THE A^NIERICAN REBELLION. 

or at New Orleans, and with these forces acting- in concert 
with the army of the Cumberland, and other forces in its 
vicinity and on the Mississippi, all the Confederate forces 
between this river and the Savannah could have been cap- 
tured or utterly scattered in a very few weeks. From the 
points referred to, also, most important and effective winter 
campaigns might have been always carried on. Yet, no use 
whatever, such as above designated, was made of these 
advantages, though their palpable use was most persistently 
urged upon the military authorities, — no use, excepting in a 
single instance, to be hereafter noticed, just at the close of 
the war. While no proper use was made of the advan- 
tages which the holding of these positions gave us, it re- 
quired the perpetual employment, in scattered fragments, of 
from 100,000 to 150,000 men to hold these places and keep 
open our communications on the Mississippi ; a force which, 
if concentrated and employed in co-operation with our 
other armies, would, in a very few months, have subjected 
the whole Confederacy to our control. We were always, 
during this war, weak at our main points and issues, 
l)ecause a vast majority of our forces were ever located 
at unsupporting distances, in positions where they could do 
nothing to settle the main issue of the conflict. 

General results of the conduct 0/ the war thus far. 

Two results followed from the palpable facts which the 
conduct of the war thus* far revealed — a very extensive dis- 
trust of the ability of the Administration, and of the party 
which sustained it, to carry the war to a successful issue ; 
and the Proclamation of Emancipation sent forth on the 
first day of January 1863. The sentiment of distrust re- 
ferred to manifested itself in the fall elections of the year 
preceding. In these elections the States of New York and 
New Jersey elected democratic governors, and the ten States 
west of New England gave a majority of ten representa- 
tives in Congress on the same side ; the solid vote of New 
England, and that alone, securing for the Administration 
a working majority in the House of Representatives, so 
near had palpable imbecility and unwisdom in the conduct 
of the war brought the Union to final dissolution. Under 
this influence, extensive conspiracies were organized 



KXPEDITIONS ON THE SEABOARD AND OCEANS. 2 2r? 

throughout the Northern States to put down the war by 
force, conspiracies which issued in the year followin^^ in the 
New York riots. General Lee's second invasion of Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland was induced by the expectation and 
assurance received that such invasion would be attended 
with a general uprising against the Administration. This 
conspiracyhad its organized ramifications throughout all the 
Northern States, out of New England. So assured had the 
conspirators become, that during the sessions of the legisla- 
ture of the State of Michigan in February 1863, a member 
of each House affirmed, before the body of which he was a 
member, that within a very few weeks the war would be ended 
by a general uprising of the people throughout the Northern 
States. When called to order for such treasonable utter- 
ances, they were repeated with the defiant declaration that 
in a very short time blood would flow in torrents throughout 
the nation. We were in Lansing when those utterances 
were given forth. A single fact will indicate the extent and 
spirit of these organizations. With an Irishman who had 
for years been employed about the college, we had formed 
quite a strong friendship. At length he began to talk 
ominously about the uprising that was soon to occur, and 
of the blood that was then to flow. After this he stated 
that in a few days blood would be shed. ''Well," I re- 
plied, to test his spirit, " if such an event should occur, you 
would not injure me, your friend ? " With a wolfish growl 
he replied : " I would take your life, sir, as soon as I would 
that of any other man." We Immediately hastened down 
to the cily, and stated the facts and our apprehensions 
to Major Cole, who had retired from the army on account 
of wounds received. " It Is true," he replied, " that these 
conspiracies exist, and that these uprisings are contem- 
plated. But do you kn®w what exists on the other side? " 
*' No," we answered. " Let me assure you that Unionists 
throughout the Northern States are perfectly organized, 
armed, and equipped, with all their officers appointed and 
their signals and places of rendezvous all agreed upon. 
Should a rising occur In this city, for example, at certain 
strokes of the bell every man will be In his place ; and let 
me assure you that after the first blow shall fall, the treason 
will never be repeated." It was, we repeat, with a full 



230 THE amp:rican rebellion. 

knowledge of these treasonable organizations, and of their 
promised uprisings, that General Lee made his second in- 
vasion, and fought the desperate battle of Gettysburg. 

But the most important result of the conduct of the war 
was the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the Constitu- 
tional Amendments which followed that event. It has 
been said that " if we had not had a AlcClellan, we should 
not have had a Grant." It is equally true that if McClellan, 
Halleck, and Buell had not been substituted for Fremont 
and others of kindred spirit and ability, we should never 
have suffered the unexampled defeats and calamities which 
rendered that Proclamation, in the judgment of the Ad- 
ministration, and that contrary to all previous plans and 
expectations, an absolute national necessity. But for the 
calamities which followed, in the year 1863, under General 
Halleck as Commander-in-Chief, the coloured man would 
not have become a soldier, and up to this time we should 
not have had more than the Thirteenth Amendment. A 
letter received from Mr. Sumner in the latter part of the 
year 1862, we having fully expressed to him, in successive 
letters, our views of the conduct of the war, and who 
had laid the same before the President, — a letter from Mr. 
Sumner, we say, contains these words (the first sentences 
have been given before) : — " I have, from the beginning, 
been profoundly impressed with your views. A Govern- 
jient more quick and positive than ours would have 
adopted them early, and the war would have been ended 
long since. Perhaps, however, these delays and disasters 
may result in consequences which you and I value more 
than we do any present victories and advantages." These 
were considerations which, all along, rendered us hopefully 
patient, in view of the events which we have detailed. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN THE MONTH OB 
JANUARY 1863. 

Having, as stated in the Introduction, made the science 
of war a subject of careful study from my youth, and 
having- fully acquainted myself with the characteristics 
of the leading campaigns of past ages, particularly those 
of the present century and of the preceding one, and 
having done so for the specific purpose of attaining to a 
clear understanding of the chief causes of the successes 
and failures of such campaigns, and having observed that 
the entire conduct of the war under consideration was, on 
our part, in palpable violation of all the known principles 
and examples of successful warfare, and in equally palpable 
accordance with the very worst principles and examples 
known to the science of war, or represented in history, 
or representable in thought, I felt it a sacred duty to pre-, 
sent my views of the subject to the military authorities at 
Washington. I accordingly, immediately after the first 
disaster at Bull Run, entered into correspondence with 
such individuals as Secretary Chase, senators Sumner, 
King, and Chandler, and members of the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War. In these communications, 
special criticisms were made upon the generar conduct 
of the war, developing its fundamental errors, and show- 
ing what ought to have been done. Similar criticisms 
were presented of the different particular campaigns as 
they occurred. These views were laid before the President 
particularly, and pressed upon his consideration. The 
following communication from Secretary Chase will in- 
terest the reader. It was sent in reply to a very long 



232 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

communication containing the main criticisms found in 
the preceding pages. In this communication I made this 
general statement, that if it had been the fixed and deli- 
berate aim of our military authorities to conduct this war 
in accordance with the worst principles condemned in 
military science, and the worst examples known in history, 
or representable in human thought, they could not have 
succeeded, in my honest judgment, better than they had 
done. To this communication the Secretary sent the 
following reply. The letter was, of course, confidential 
at the time, reasons for privacy being now removed : — 

"Treasury Department, Oct. 2<)th, 1^,62. 
" My dear Sir, — 

" I have attentively read your letter, and agree 
with you entirely in regard to the management of the war 
hitherto. In my judgment, no General has a right to be 
continued in service an hour after it becomes evident that 
success cannot be achieved under his lead. I have often 
expressed views substantially similar to yours to the 
President, but other counsels have better approved them- 
selves to his judgment. I think that experience has 
wrought some change in his views, though not so com- 
plete a change as I could wish. The substitution of 
Rosecrans for Buell is a beginning. The appointment of 
Mitchell to the department of the south is also good. 
Other changes, I think, will be made, and a greater 
vigour in every direction may be expected. If disap- 
pointed in this, I shall almost despair ; but I do not ex- 
pect to be disappointed. 

" I shall be glad to receive any practical suggestions 
you may make. They will be instructive to me, and may 
be useful to the country. 

" Yours very truly, 

♦'S. P. Chase." 

After receiving such communications, and after the 
terrible defeat at Fredericksburg, I determined to visit 
Washington, and through the influence of my friends there, 
lay my views before the President and Secretary of War. 



MY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1 863. 2^^ 

I arrived there on the last day of December 1861, and 
spent most of the next forenoon with Secretary Chase. 
Through him a hearing was obtained with Secretary 
Stanton, In the opening of our communication with the 
latter, we commenced a criticism on the past conduct of 
the war. This the Secretary interrupted, saying that he 
had understood from Secretary Chase that I had de- 
veloped a plan for the future conduct of the war and he 
wanted to hear that. We then gave him a full statement of 
the plan. " Where is your General," exclaimed the Secre- 
tary, ** to carry out such a plan as that? " "I did not 
come here, Mr. Stanton, to furnish a General, but to de- 
velop a plan by which this war can be brought to a speedy 
and almost bloodless termination." "Well, give us a 
General," responded the Secretary; " the best plan that 
can be proposed is the worst, if you have not a General 
capable of carrying it out." " I should suppose, Mr. 
Stanton," I replied, " that if a definite and practicable 
plan were submitted, a General capable of carrying it out 
might be found." " Give us a General ; name your man," 
was the reply of our Secretary of War. So the interview 
ended, and with it all hope of any favourable results from 
that department. I then spent a full half day with 
senators Wade and Wilson, laying before them my 
criticisms on the conduct of the war thus far, and 
my plan for the future. Both the criticism and plan 
were unqualifiedly endorsed by both, each saying that 
he now understood the whole subject as he had never 
done before. By agreement, we spent the next evening 
with the President, who, with great interest, listened to 
all I had to say. He then requested that I would re- 
duce my views to writing, saying that he would give 
them a most careful investigation. After preparing the 
document, and reading it to the senators, they accom- 
panied me a second time to the President's office. 
After an attentive hearing of the document, and a full 
discussion of its presentations, the President addressed 
Messrs. Wade and Wilson in these words : " Gentlemen, 
I am in earnest in what I am now about to say to you. 
It you senators advise it, I will adopt this plan, and 
appoint a new Commander-in Chief to carry it out," — 



234 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

naming the same individual whom the senators had pre- 
viously designated as the man to accomplish the result. 
It was understood that certain other senators were to 
be consulted before final measures were adopted. In 
the meantime, another paper was prepared and read 
before the President ; a paper the object of which was to 
demonstrate the utter unwisdom of the measure which 
was then avowed as the next great movement of the war, 
namely, " the opening of the Mississippi and the plug- 
ging up of the southern ports." What was urged in 
this paper was that the next movement should have one 
supreme end, the wiping out of the armies of the Con- 
federacy, the armies of Lee and Johnston particularly. 
At this meeting it was unanimously agreed to submit 
these papers to the careful scrutiny of some leading 
General ; and General McDowell was as unanimously 
selected as the officer best qualified to give judgment in 
such a case. After hearing the papers read, and spend- 
ing four or five hours in discussing the principles and 
facts presented. General McDowell gave a written en- 
dorsement of the plan developed, as being the best that he 
had heard suggested. All now felt sure of securing the 
arrangement desired. One ominous fact became known 
during the day prior to the evening for a final interview with 
the President, to the senators who were in consultation, a 
fact which, in their judgment, threw dark shadows over 
the future, the fact that the Secretary of War and General 
Halleck were closeted, during the day, with the President, 
he receiving no other company. 

On meeting with the President and handing him the 
paper from General McDowell, we were all, the senators 
excepted, surprised at the change which had occurred in 
the views of our supreme executive. Of the plan under 
consideration, he assured us, his views were unchanged. 
It was, unquestionably, the best plan that had yet been 
submitted. It was attended, however, with one funda- 
mental difficulty — the utter impossibility, in the existing 
jtate of our railroads, to concentrate at Fortress Monroe 
the needful forces, and to do this in time to render the 
movement effective. "In the present state of these roads," 
he added, "it is impossible to transport over them an army 



MY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1 863. 235 

of 10,000 men in the space of four weeks." I reminded 
him of the fact that Mr. Covode, the superintendent of the 
Pennsylvania Central, and the master of transportation on 
the same road, had each, but a few days before, submitted 
to the Committee on the Conduct of the War an indepen- 
dent opinion, based upon the most careful calculations, 
that by putting all their rolling stock in requisition they 
could convey over that single road an army of 50,000 
men, with all their appointments, and that in the space of 
four days. Members of the Committee present fully con- 
firmed the above statements. In the face of all this 
evidence, the President absolutely adhered to the opinion 
which he had before expressed, the opinion which Stanton 
and Halleck had fixed in his mind. At length, he said to 
us: "Gentlemen, I have pledged to you my word that if 
you advise it I will adopt this new plan. I hold myself 
still bound by this pledge. I assure you, however, that I 
have no confidence whatever in the practicability of the 
plan." Thus the meeting broke up, the senators deeming 
it unadvisable to recommend a plan to which the Secretary 
of War was avowedly opposed, and the practicability of 
which the President thus distrusted. On taking leave of 
the chairman of the Committee, he expressed himself, on 
account of the immobility of our military authorities, in 
almost blank despair of the Republic. One of the senators, 
after I left, went down to Falmouth, and in a council of 
war held by General Burnside with all his corps com- 
manders, laid the plan before them. Every such com- 
mander strongly advised the adoption of the plan. 
General Burnside replied that he fully endorsed the plan. 
He had one of his own, however, which he desired first to 
try. If that failed, he would adopt the new one. He 
tried his own, failed, and was superseded ; but afterwards 
expressed to the senator his regret that he had not fol- 
lowed the advice of his corps commanders. One year 
from the next July, a Major-General from the army of the 
Potomac, made, in the city of Rochester, New York, this 
statement to Mr. Lawrence, proprietor of our principal 
hotel, then on a visit to that city : — " A year ago last 
January, a gentleman from your State, I forget his name, 
came to Washington, and laid before our military autho- 



236 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

rities a plan for the future conduct of the war. All our 
corps commanders strongly advised the adoption of that 
plan. Secretary Stanton and General Halleck, however, 
prevented its adoption, Halleck saying that " it would 
never do to have a civilian plan our campaigns." The 
reader may now be somewhat interested to know some- 
thing of the papers under consideration, together with the 
plan therein developed. The papers were divided into 
two parts, a criticism on the conduct of the war up to that 
time, and a fully developed plan for the future conduct of 
the same. After giving the specific criticisms which have 
been so greatly expanded in the preceding portion of this 
treatise, I gave the following general summary of the 
fundamental defects in our campaigns as conducted up to 
that time. 

** Fundamental errors in the conduct of the war thus far, 

" Were I to sum up in few words the fundamental 
defects which have obtained in the conduct of the war 
thus far, I should specify the following as among the 
more prominent : — 

" I. Making it a fundamental aim to capture and hold 
places, instead of aiming our blows at the heart and centre 
of the Rebellion, the arviy of the Confederacy. The move- 
ment upon Corinth, all our movements upon Richmond, 
and our expeditions south, wear but one and the same 
aspect — the taking and holding some particular places. 
Now we may overrun the whole Confederacy, and occupy 
all its chief cities and strongholds, and as long as the 
army of the Confederacy remains intact, and presents the 
prospect of ultimate success, we have done really nothing 
in putting down the Rebellion. Smite its armies, on the 
other hand, and the Rebellion is dead, and all its chief 
places fall into our hands without further bloodshed. 

" 2. Scattering our forces, and locating them in unsup- 
porting localities for mere defence, instead of centralizing 
and concentrating them for main issues, is an error which, 
to an alarming extent, has characterised the conduct of 
the war thus far. J have often said that it would require 
2,000,000 men, distributed as our army has hitherto 
been, to put down this Rebellion ; whereas 500,000 effec- 



MY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1863. 237 

tive forces properly centralized is the utmost amount that 
was ever required for this purpose. 

" 3. Aiming our blows at the extremities instead of the 
vital centres of the enemy's power is another error equally 
fundamental and equally common in the conduct of this 
war. Victories gained upon the borders, and localities 
gained and held, over which the nation has so often 
exulted, and in the results of which it has, of course, so 
often been disappointed, what are they, as determining 
final issues, so long as the army of General Lee moves 
before us with victory crowning its banners ? 

" 4. Moving upon fortified places, and attacking them 
in front when they can be successfully turned by flank 
movements in which all the communications of such places 
can be taken and held, is another error equally common 
and fundamental in the conduct of this war. Never were 
positions more exposed to this form of attack than were 
those of the enemy at Manassas, Bowling Green, Colum- 
bus, Corinth, and Richmond, for example. Yet they were 
all approached on their strongest sides, and their com- 
munications left intact. I cannot recall one single move- 
ment of any importance to which the above remarks are 
not strictly applicable. 

" 5. Moving our forces on single lines into a hostile 
country, where we, by advancing from our own centres, 
and that under the necessity of guarding our communica- 
tion, become, of necessity, weaker and weaker, and the 
enemy, by falling back on his, becomes relatively and 
really stronger and stronger, — moving on such lines, instead 
of concentrating our forces upon him from different points, 
and this when he is in positions from whence he cannot 
escape, has characterized thus far the conduct of this war. 
A movement yet remains to be made, which has the 
appearance of a design to capture any one army of the 
Confederacy. This capital error I have fully elucidated 
in my preceding criticisms. 

"6. Another of the most noticeable and capital errors 
which has characterized the conduct of this war thus far, 
is the attempt to strike the foe, scattered, as he is, over 
half a continent, — endeavouring to strike the foe, I say, at 
all points at one and the same time, instead of centralizing 



238 THE AMERICAN REBELLION-. 

our forces upon some one great and central issue, and 
doing a finishing work there, and then concentrating upon 
other vital centres until the whole work is finished. We 
may realize the idea of the anaconda in respect to mere 
localities and single armies ; but when we attempt thus to 
encircle half a continent, and by a single wrench or two 
to crush the enemy, we shall find, as we have hitherto 
done, our fancied constrictor to be a miserably rotten 
tapeworm, that is itself broken into fragments the first 
contraction it makes. Instead of acting for the realization 
of such an absurd idea, had our main forces been concen- 
trated for the finishing up, by one great movement, the 
work in Virginia, and then in some other central locality, 
the Rebellion would long since have been wholly wiped 
out. No war was ever conducted to a successful issue 
that was waged upon the principle of extension and 
simultaneous action over half a continent, such as has 
obtained in the conduct of this war. In taking up this 
idea our Commanders-in-Chief have wholly ignored and 
repudiated all the principles by which all successful 
Generals have obtained their victories. 

" 7. The want of systematic unity and co-operation of 
forces is still another fundamental error which has, to a 
very great extent, characterised the conduct of this war. 
In the campaign of Bull Run, for example, forces enough 
lay within calling distance to have rendered, had they 
been called in, that campaign a glorious success, and that 
beyond a contingency. Yet all these multitudinous forces 
were left in inglorious inaction, while a single mass was 
precipitated, alone and unaided, upon the enemy. The 
same, as we have seen, was true of the campaign in Mary- 
land, and so, with exceptions few and far between, every- 
where. All great commanders concentrate their forces 
before fighting a decisive battle. We leave ours scattered 
as before, and suffer those who happen to be present on a 
given field to decide the destiny of the nation. 

*' 8. I refer to but one other fundamental error which 
has, thus far, characterised the conduct of this war. Our 
army has being for one exclusive purpose, not defensive, 
but offensive operations — the putting down of the Rebellion. 
Yet a majority of our forces have been scattered over the 



MY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1863. 239 

country, and employed exclusively for the former purpose. 
More than 200,000 men, for example, were, in this vicinity, 
employed for the space of eight months for no other pur- 
pose than mere defence and protection against fancied 
attacks from less than 70,000 ; and our army here was as 
badly distributed for such an absurd purpose as any I ever 
read of. The same holds true of our forces at the West. 
At the present time masses of disciplined troops which 
might be effectively employed In offensive operations for 
vital Issues, are simply holding territories, and guarding 
particular localities against imaginary raids, when offen- 
sive operations for central issues would be effectual pre- 
ventatives against such evils. It is only when armies are 
lying still that raids occur. On the other hand, whenever 
they are striking crushing blows at the central power of 
the enemy, then an universal concentration of forces 
occurs, and raids are impossible. 

" The errors above enumerated are perfectly funda- 
mental, and must be abandoned, or we are for ever a 
divided people. Of these errors the nation complains, 
and for their correction earnestly prays to the God of 
heaven, and turns beseechingly to our supreme executive. 

•* To escape the appalling consequences of such errors, 
entirely new principles must obtain in the future conduct 
of this war. Every movement must be directed In accord- 
ance with some well-digested and all-comprehending plan, 
a plan in which our entire forces shall be unltied and 
centralized for the final settlement of main and funda- 
mental issues. One fixed and exclusive aim must deter- 
mine all dispositions and movements, the destruction of the 
armies of the Confederacy. Places and territory must be 
taken, held, and abandoned, and raids and invasions pre- 
vented or endured for the time being, as this one great 
issue demands. 

" In accordance with these principles and aims, I will 
now propose a plan for the finishing of this war and a 
total suppression of this Rebellion, by two short and 
decisive campaigns, one to be accomplished first, and 
then the other. It will be admitted as self-evident that 
if the army of General Lee and the forces of the Con- 
federacy now in the valley of Mississippi were annihilated, 



240 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the Rebellion would be practically ended. I propose, then, 
as the object of the first campaign, the destruction of the 
army of General Lee, and, as that of the second, the 
annihilation of the other forces referred to," 

The plan proposed for the cajnpaign against the army of 

General Lee. 

The plan of the first compaign was a very simple one, 
one readily comprehended, and which can be stated in few 
words. At Fredericksburg lay General Lee with an 
army less than 80,000 strong. At Falmouth, on the 
opposite side of the Rappahannock, lay General Burnside 
with an army outnumbering that of his opponent as more 
than three to two. No addition to our forces, nor any 
change in their dispositions, here was required. At and 
near Fortress Monroe were two army corps, numbering in 
all from 20,000 to 30,000 men. It was proposed simply 
to increase this force, by a reinforcement of at least 60,000 
men, to upwards of 80,000, rendering our army, at this 
point, quite equal to that of General Lee at Fredericksburg. 
When all things were in readiness, this army was to be 
landed at Bermuda Hundred, or at some point selected, 
and seize all Lee's communications south of James river. 
As soon of General Lee should divine this movement, he 
of course would retreat from Fredericksburg. In anticipa- 
tion of this event. General Burnside was to move the main 
body of his army to the near vicinity of the convenient 
crossings above the place, to press the enemy, with all 
energy, as soon as his retreat should commence ; Burnside 
keeping his right wing so advanced as to compel Lee to 
fall back into Richmond. At the earliest possible mo- 
ment, the right of Burnside was to be brought into com- 
munication with the left of our army south of James river. 
By such an arrangement Richmond, and Lee in Richmond, 
would be encircled by an army two or three times as 
numerous as that within the city, and so encircled that 
all parts of our two armies should at all times be in sup- 
porting distances from one another. 

Under such circumstances, should General Lee have 
fought a battle he would have been crushed at once by 
the over-whelming forces precipitated upon him ; shouid 



Mir VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1 863. 24 1 

he remain in the city, famine then would have compelled 
his surrender in a few weeks. In any event, the destruc- 
tion of his army would have been a fixed certainty. No 
military man, nor any individual of common intelligence, 
to whom the plan has been unfolded, has expressed to me 
the remotest doubt of the validity of the above deduction. 
General Rosecrans, when the plan was unfolded to him, 
promptly replied that that plan ought to have been 
adopted. Rev. W. W. Lyle, a chaplain in the western 
army, and author of the " Lights and Shadows of Army 
Life," stated to me that officers in high command in that 
army had often expressed to him their astonishment that 
a plan identical with this had not been adopted for the 
destruction of the army of General Lee. 

The last feature of this plan was this. In case a 
portion of Lee's army should perchance escape into North 
Carolina, their only possible line of retreat, a fleet was to 
be held in readiness to move a sufficient force round to 
Hilton Head to intercept the retreat of the body under 
consideration, and preventing their crossing the" Savannah 
river. Between this force and the army of the Potomac 
in pursuit, the capture of this body would result. Will- 
mington, Charlestown, and Columbia, etc., would then be 
at our mercy, and the Rebellion in the Carolinas and 
Virginia would be for ever suppressed. 

The plan for the second aiid firiishing campaign. 

Equally simple and practicable was the plan for the 
second and finishing campaign. While the operations 
against General Lee were going on, provisions and means 
of transportation necessary for the movement of an army 
of 40,000 or 50,000 men were to be conveyed round to 
Pensacola, or to some point most convenient for the move- 
ment of said force into Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi, as 
circumstances might require. When General Lee should 
be disposed of, and matters settled as above stated, an 
army, as above indicated, was to be sent round to Florida, 
while the army of the Potomac, after reinforcing that of 
the west, was to moor through the Carolinas, cross the 
Savannah river, and capture Savannah and Augusta. All 
matters being arranged, this army, with that in Florida 

16 



242 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

and the army of the west, were to move simultaneously 
upon the army then under General Bragg- and other forces 
co-operating with him, and crush out these between the 
immense masses precipitated upon them. These forces 
being finally disposed of, all ports and fortified posts be- 
tween the Savannah and Mississippi rivers would at once 
fall into our hands, and the Rebellion in all the States east 
of the river last named would be completely suppressed. 
A proclamation was then to be issued promising amnesty 
to all who would lay down their arms and return peace- 
ably to their homes within a designated period, and 
rendering it a capital crime for any officer to remain in 
command of any body of men in rebellion after the ter- 
mination of that period. Such was the plan for the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion, as fully developed in the papers 
read before the President as above stated, and which now 
lie before me. 

Was the carrying out of the plan possible ? 

The only objection urged against the plan, even by 
Messrs. Stanton and Halleck, was the utter impossibility 
of carrying it out. If they were right here, their memory 
should be to the nation " as ointment poured forth," be- 
cause they alone prevented its adoption. If they were 
wrong, and palpably so, then no nation ever suffered 
more from the errors of two men than ours in this case. 
What are the real facts bearing upon our inquiries here ? 
According to the report of the Secretary of War, 
made to Congress December ist, 1862, the army of the 
United States then in the field " constituted a force of 
775>336 officers and privates, fully armed and equipped. 
Since the date of the returns," the report adds, " this 
number has been increased to over 800,000 men. When 
the quotas are filled up, the force will number a million of 
men, and the estimates for next year are based upon that 
number." At the time when the above plan was sub- 
mitted, we had then an army in the field, an army between 
8oo,oooand 1,000,000 strong, '*fully armed and equipped." 
What must we think of the idea that out of this immense 
army 60,000 men could not have been furnished to rein- 
force tthe two army corps at and near Fortress Monroe, 



UY VISIT TO WASHINGTON IN JANUARY 1 863. 243 

and that the railroads and fleets of the United States 
could not afford facilities to convey these 60,000 men to 
their desired destination ? It was not denied by the 
Secretary of War at the time when the facts were stated 
to him that all the forces needed to make up this amount 
were then in the Carolinas, in the Kanahway valley, in 
the State of Kentucky, and other localities equally near. 

Let us now consider the army of the Potomac itself. 
According to official returns made, as we have seen, 
October 20th, 1862, the army of the Potomac, exclusive 
of the forces at Baltimore and Fortress Monroe, consisted 
of 304,609 men. Of these 207,036 were present for duty, 
42,298 sick, ect., and 91,275 absent. The deduction is 
quite safe that by January 1863 this army consisted of 
from 210,000 to 220,000 men present for duty, and that 
over and above those lost at Fredericksburg. Of these, 
about 120,000 to 130,000 were with General Burnside, 
leaving about 80,000 doing garrison duty. A force 
60,000 strong might undeniably have been taken from 
these and sent down to Fortress Monroe, the places of 
those sent being supplied by others brought in from 
abroad, in time to prevent any peril to the national capital. 
The forces required for the consummation of the plan 
under consideration, might, undeniably, have been brought 
to the point where they were needed in less than three 
weeks after the plan was agreed upon. The certain result 
would have been, the termination of the War of the 
Rebellion during the first six months of the year 1863, 
and that with the loss of but a very few thousand lives. 
Had this plan been adopted, Fredericksburg would have, 
unquestionably, been our last defeat, and our last very 
bloody battle, and our national debt would now be less 
than Si, 000, 000, 000. We shall see, hereafter, how the 
idea developed in the plan under consideration influenced 
the subsequent campaigns of the army of the Potomac, 
and finally brought the war to a successful termination. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WINTER CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL ROSECRANS. 

On the 30th October, 1862, General Rosecrans assumed 
the command of what was afterwards designated the army 
of the Cumberland ; General Buell having been previously 
relieved from the command of this army. On entering 
upon his duties, the new commander found that under his 
predecessor that army had been subject to depletion in 
the same form in which that of the Potomac had been 
diminished under General McClellan, 26,482 of the former 
army being found to be " absent by authority," and 6,484 
** absent without authority." General Rosecrans, on 
assuming command, found his army, formerly 100,000 
strong, now reduced to about 65,000 men, and located at 
Bowling Green ; General Bragg's army, in the meantime, 
making, with its immense trains, a circuitous retreat 
round through East Tennessee. As our army was de- 
pendent for its supplies upon the Louisville and Na.shville 
Railroad, our commander was not able to reach the latter 
place ;and assume the offensive until after General Bragg 
had concluded his long march and reappeared in our 
front at Murfreesboro'. In the meantime the Confederate 
cavalry, greatly superior to our own, and commanded by 
Generals Morgan and Wheeler, swarmed in all directions 
around our forces, breaking up our communications, cut- 
ting off our supplies, gobbling up stragglers, and at Harts- 
ville capturing about 2,000 prisoners. 

When General Rosecrans was ready to take the field, 
he found himself at the head of 46,910 men, divided into 
three grand divisions commanded by Generals McCook, 
Thomas, and Crittenden. After three or four days marching, 
with some severe skirmishing and fighting, the two armies. 



WINTER CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL ROSECRANS. 245 

on the evening of December 26th, confronted each other, 
their main forces lying between two streams, Stone river 
and Overall creek, which united with each other several 
miles north-east of our position ; the battle-field being 
located from two to four miles north-west of Murfrees- 
boro', the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad running 
nearly through the centre of both armies. Our line, 
stretching from nearly north to south some three to four 
miles, was deployed in the following order : Crittenden, 
about 13,000 strong, on our left; Thomas, with an equal 
force, in the centre; and McCook, with about 15,000, on 
our right. Of the Confederate line, Hardee occupied their 
left, Polk the centre, and Breckinridge the right north 
and west of Stone river. The plan of General Rosecrans 
was to have McCook hold his own if possible, fight 
desperately, and retreat slowly, if too hard pressed ; while 
our left and centre were to fall upon Breckinridge, crush 
j him, and rolling up the Confederates upon their centre 
and right, to interpose between them and Murfreesboro', 
and thus cut off their retreat. The counter plan of General 
Bragg was to concentrate a crushing force upon McCook, 
roll up his divisions upon our centre and left, interpose 
between our army and Nashville, and thus insure its final . 
capture. Each plan was well conceived, and, what was 
singular, each commander became, during the night, fully- 
possessed of the other's intentions; General Bragg, unfor- 
tunately for us, making the earliest move. At four o'clock 
in the morning, December 31st, Hardee, greatly reinforced 
and sustained by the central division under Polk, suddenly 
emerged from the thickets in McCook' s front, while another 
force assailed his right division in flank, soon hurled his 
divisions in mingled masses upon our centre, even his left 
divisions, under J. C. Davis and Sheridan, after the most 
desperate resistance, being driven back into the rear of our 
centre. By 11 a.m. more than one-third of our army was 
almost utterly routed and demoralised, and about half the 
ground held by us at daylight was occupied by the Con- 
federates, while their cavalry was making sad havock 
among our stragglers and supply trains between our rear 
and Nashville. 

Our centre, under the indomitable Thomas, now felt the 



246 THE Aj\tERICAN REBELLIOX. 

full force of the Confederate left and centre, even McCook's 
left division, under Sheridan, falling back, its ammunition 
being exhausted, behind Thomas. Such was the force of 
the attack here that Thomas was necessitated to withdraw 
his two right divisions, under Negley and Rousseau, to a 
more open and favourable position behind his centre ; a 
movement very ably executed, but with heavy loss, a 
battalion of regulars losing 530 men. The new ground 
taken, however, like Thomas's last position at Chicka- 
mauga, was held against every effort of Bragg to take it. 
So matters stood at nightfall, when darkness put an end 
to the conflict. 

At the close of the day our army, while it held its final 
position, had lost half the ground it occupied in the morn- 
ing and, including its killed, wounded, and missing, full 
one-fourth its number, and quite an equal proportion of its 
guns ; while the Confederate cavalry held full possession 
of our communications, and were plundering at will our 
baggage and supplies. 

The next day both armies remained quiet in their 
respective positions, a few artillery duels excepted. The 
second battle, January 2nd, was in most respects a repeti- 
tion of the first ; the Confederates in this instance assailing 
in great force our left and left centre, and driving them 
back as they had before done wiJi our right and right 
centre, until they encountered our batteries, which ploughed 
through and through them, and compelled them to fall 
back with the loss of four guns and a considerable number 
of prisoners. Night selting in prevented any pursuit on 
the part of our commander. Heavy rains prevented any 
special movements of either army until the evening of 
January 3rd, when General Bragg retreated so quietly 
that even our pickets did not suspect the movement until 
the next morning. On the day following, our army 
entered Murfreesborc', where it found about 1,500 of the 
enemy's sick and wounded left, with medical attendants, 
in hospitals there. 

In these two days' battles Rosecrans admits a loss 
on our part of ''),778 killed and wounded. Bragg puts his 
loss at 10,000 in killed, wounded, and missing, and claims 
to have taken from us on the field and by his cavalry raids, 



WINTER CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL ROSECRANS. 247 

between Murfreesboro' and Nashville, 6,273 prisoners, 
30 guns — he losing 3 — 6,000 small arms, and vast stores of 
valuable spoils, besides burning upwards of 800 army 
waggons, with all their contents. The loss on our part 
was undeniably far greater than on that of the Confederates. 
Their retreat, however, leaves the claim of victory to our 
brave army and its able commander. During the winter 
following, raids were the order of the day on both sides ; 
the Confederates, on account of their superiority in cavalry, 
doing us far more injury than they received from us. 

Aside from the honour of final mastery of the field, the 
battle of Murfreesboro' was wholly barren of results on 
either side. The armies, being nearly equal in number 
and discipline, slaughtered each other to more than one- 
fourth their number, and then the Confederates went on 
their way, and the Unionists returned to Nashville. Yet, 
with no blame whatever to General Rosecrans, no other 
excuse can be offered for such a battle than the most 
stupid ignorance on the part of our Commander-in-Chief. 
We had, as we have seen, at the time when, with an army 
less than 50,000 strong, Rosecrans moved out from Nash- 
ville, — we had in the field quite 1,000,000 men, " fully armed 
and equipped; " and next to the sphere of the army of the 
Potomac, that of the Cumberland was the most important 
in the war. What excuse was there, then, in compelling, 
as he was really compelled to move, the commander of 
this army to fight a great national battle with an army 
less than 100,000 strong. Had this amount of force 
been furnished our General, the battle of Murfreesboro' 
would practically have ended the Rebellion, as far as 
the Confederate States between the Savannah and Mis- 
sissippi rivers are concerned. But with the stupid un- 
wisdom which controlled our war counsels, 60,000 men 
could not be at the time furnished for the army of the 
Cumberland, or for that of the Potomac. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON. 

On the i6th October, 1862, the department of General 
Grant was enlarged, so as to include both West Tennessee 
and Mississippi. On receiving this command, he at once 
commenced preparations for the capture of Vicksburg. 
On the 4th July, eight and a half months from that time, 
our army entered the city, and took possession of its 
strongholds. The capture of this post has been regarded 
by perhaps a majority of the people of this country as a 
feat of masterly generalship, and did, in connexion with 
the short command of General Grant at Chattanooga, 
elevate him to the supreme command of our armies, and 
finally secured for him two elections to the Presidency of 
these United States. We have never agreed with the 
estimate placed upon the military character of this trans- 
action. To us, it wears, for the most part, the same 
dull aspect which generally characterized the conduct of 
this war. Leaving, in his advance from Grand Junction 
to Oxford, his depot of arms, munitions, and provisions, 
containing property valued at ^4,000,000, at Holly 
Springs, guarded but by an effective force of about 1,000 
men, when it was well known that the enemy was watch- 
ing every opportunity to fall upon our communications 
and cut off our supplies, cannot but be justly regarded 
as a very gross blunder. Then, on account of such a 
disaster, which was at once repaired, to abandon the 
important line of advance by Jackson, and make that long- 
detour round to Memphis and down the Mississippi, seems 
indicative of a palpable want of military wisdom. Then, 
Sherman's assault upon Vicksburg, an assault in which 



THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON. 249 

column after column of infantry were hurled against im- 
pregnable defences, involved not only a useless but im- 
prudent and most excuseless slaughter of brave men. 
In his criticisms on the siege of Vicksburg, General 
Sherman remarks that had General Grant continued, 
as he undeniably might have done, his advance upon the 
place, in the direction in which he was moving when he 
retreated back from Oxford, and made the detour round 
through Corinth, Memphis, and down the Mississippi, he 
would have captured the place in January instead of the 
following July. In this statement, General Sherman 
is undeniable correct. These fundamental errors deprive 
General Grant of all just renown in this campaign, namely, 
leaving his immense supplies behind him under guard of 
but about 1,000 men, where his guard and supplies were 
certain to be seized by the enemy; making the loss of 
those supplies the occasion for the abandonment of the 
only proper line of advance, and taking the wide detour 
under consideration ; and, finally, locating his great army 
where it could do nothing whatever having the remotest 
tendency to secure the object of the campaign, and then 
utterly wasting six months' time in doing, as we shall 
see, the most senseless and absurd things of which a 
commander can conceive. 

We must bear in mind also that the investment of 
Vicksburg was effected on the morning of the 19th May, 
and that prior to this time the city had in no sense or 
form been besieged, the siege proper continuing but forty- 
five days. What had our great army been doing during 
the previous six months ? Without making any ap- 
proaches towards the city, or erecting batteries which 
could reach any of its defences, our immense forces 
during this entire period were lying in idleness, dreaming 
of some "good time coming," or were most senselessly 
employed in canal and ditch digging, for the purposes 
of cutting the city off from the mainland by flanking the 
fortifications at Haines's Bluff on the Yazoo, or conveying 
our fleet round through dead lagoons into the Mississippi 
below the city. The number of these ditches and canals 
thus built is too numerous to be described. A notice of 
one, and that the most important, must suffice. Some 



250 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

160 miles In direct line above the city, quite 200 by the 
river, Moon Lake approaches within a few miles of the 
Mississippi on the east side. Out of this lake the Yazoo 
Pass enters a small river named Cold Water. This, a few 
miles below the Pass, uniting with another stream, forms 
the Tallahatchee, and this some sixty or seventy miles 
below unites with the Yallabusha, and forms the Yazoo 
river. All these are narrow and slow streams, suffi- 
ciently deep, however, to float ironclads. At the expense 
of months of time and immense labour, a ditch was dug 
from the Mississippi into the lake designated, and a 
passage was opened for our vessels into the Cold Water. 
The object of opening this new line of communication 
was to flank the Confederate fortifications at Yazoo City 
and Haines's Bluff, fortifications too strong to be captured 
by assaults from our fleets and land forces by a movement 
from near Vicksburg up the Yazoo. At length, after 
untold labour and the loss of months of time, the expe- 
dition sailed, or rather steamed off;, three toilsome days 
being spent in getting through Moon Lake and Yazoo 
Pass. The armament consisted of a division of land forces 
5,000 strong under General Ross, of two large gunboats, 
five smaller ones, and eighteen transports ; two mortar- 
boats being afterwards sent down. This expedition, whose 
preparation had been long before announced to the nation 
and world through the press, and was fully understood 
throughout the Confederacy, was expected, after " finding 
out its uncouth way" for more than 150 miles down 
these narrow and tortuous rivers, to capture, right in 
the presence of General Johnston's army, first Fort 
Pemberton, at the junction of the Tallahatchee and 
Yallabusha rivers, then the strong fortifications at Yazoo 
City, and finally to move down, and in connexion with the 
fleet from below, to assault and capture the still stronger 
fortifications at Haines's Bluff. The Confederates of 
course looked on and laughed at the folly, and our grand 
flotilla, with its 5,000 land forces, at the point where it en- 
countered the first battery erected to resist its progress, was 
driven back, with two of its ironclads not a little crippled, 
and slowly returned from its " Tom Fool's errand " to 
its point of dej arture. This, was the third and most de- 



THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON. 25 1 

termined effort made to flank the defences of Vicksburg. 
We may claim the merit of having- put a stop to these 
stupid proceedings. A letter written to Mr. Sumner 
contains these statements : " This whole ditch-dig-ging 
business is a dis^-race to us, in the just judgment of the 
Confederacy and the world, and is an insult to the 
intelligence of this century ; and President Lincoln is 
bound, from respect to the honour of the country which 
he represents, to put a stop at once to such senseless 
proceedings." Immediately after that letter reached 
Washington, an absolute order, so the papers announced, 
was sent on to stop all works of the kind. 

What now remained, after six months had been thus 
worse than wasted, was to do what might have been done 
in less than four weeks after our fleet and forces reached 
Milliken's Bend — the running of a sufficient number of 
ironclads and other vessels by the Confederate fortifica- 
tions, and crossing our army over the Mississippi below 
Vicksburg. Why this movement, as the only one proper 
to be made, had not before occurred to Commodore Porter 
and General Grant and other officers in the army and 
navy, appears singular ; especially when we consider the 
facts that ironclads had safely run by the formidable for- 
tifications at Island No. lo, above Memphis, and a fleet of 
ordinary war steamers had safely run the gauntlet of Forts 
Jackson and St. Philip below New Orleans. The experi- 
ment was made on the night of April i6th, and accom- 
plished with great stillness and success ; and eight 
ironclads and a sufficient number of transports safely 
passed the forts and batteries on the hgstile shore, and 
our army, at a distance of 60 or 70 miles below Vicks- 
burg, was safely landed on the eastern side of the great 
river. Too much can hardly be said of the conduct of 
our army and its commanders in the advance now made 
in the direction of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and 
from ihence directly west to Vicksburg. In the successive 
battles of Port Gibson, Fourteen Mile Creek, Raymond, 
Jackson, Champion Hills (the most important and bloody 
of all), and Big Black river, where Pemberton made a final 
stand before his retreat into Vicksburg, our total loss in 
killed, wounded, and mi.-sing was upwards of 4,000 men. 



252 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Nowhere did the enemy, even when in the strongest posi- 
tions, resist, hardly for an hour, the fire and charge of our 
forces. During this march of twenty days, our army lived 
almost wholly upon provisions picked up on the way, not 
more than five days regular rations having been dealt out 
to them. On their arrival at Vicksburg, our forces found 
the fortifications at Haines's Bluff and Yazoo City soon 
after, abandoned, and full communications with our fleet at 
the mouth of the Yazoo, and thus a readv supply of pro- 
visions and other necessities, were secured. 

As soon as our forces were drawn completely around 
the city from the line of the river on the north to the 
south side, a scene occurred, May 19th, and was repeated 
three days after, — a scene at the thought of which every 
true patriot is affected with heart-sickness. We refer 
to the successive assaults made by infantry columns upon 
the lines of Confederate fortifications in our front. The 
first assault was made mainly by General Blair's division 
of Sherman's corps, and resulted in capturing several 
outer works and holding them until nightfall, when our 
men retired by word of command. On the 22nd, the 
assault was made by our army in force along the entire 
Confederate lines. Sustained by a heavy cannonade in 
their rear, our infantry climbed up the heights in their front, 
until they stood in open form before the impregnable 
batteries of the enemy. Here they received a deadly fire 
which no troops could withstand, and fell back under cover 
of the heights which they had ascended, some 3,000 of 
their companions being left dead or weltering in their 
blood upon the field. The siege now commenced in due 
order, with few casualties on either side, until, on July 4th, 
the day after the battle at Gettysburg, the place, as we 
have before stated, was surrendered, and occupied by our 
army. Upwards of 30,000 prisoners, 213 cannon, 35,000 
stand of arms, and a vast amount of military stores, were 
the results of this surrender. 

The surrender of Vicksburg was followed, four days 
after, by that of Port Hudson. This place was fully in- 
vested by General Banks May 26th, a few days after 
General Grant had completed the investment of Vicksburg. 
The siege in the former, like that in the latter, case was 



THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON. 253 

characterised by a vain and bloody assault upon the 
enemy's lines, we thus losing upwards of 2,000 men. In 
this assault, two regiments of coloured troops so distin- 
guished themselves as to receive, from the General in com- 
mand, the highest commendations before the nation. In the 
surrender of this place, 6,458 prisoners, 15 heavy siege 
pieces in good condition, 61 field pieces, about one half in 
reparable order, 10,000 muskets, 5,000 of these being fine 
English rifles, and a vast amount of ammunition, fell into 
our hands ; the Confederates losing in the two places 
Vicksburg and Port Hudson about 40,000 men surrendered 
as prisoners of war. 

The immediate and ultimate results. 

The victory of our arms at Gettysburg, and the fall of 
Vicksburg and Port Hudson, all occurring within the space 
of five days, of course electrified the Union States, and 
induced the general belief that " the end had come," and 
that but a few weeks could elapse before a final collapse of 
of the Rebellion must occur. We did not sympathise at 
all in these apprehensions. The victory of Gettysburg had 
simply ended, not the war, as we saw, but an invasion. 
The opening of the Mississippi had ceased to be a matter 
of any great moment in deciding the issues of the war. 
In the early era of the war, the armies of the Confederacy 
had been to a great extent supplied with men and pro- 
visions from the States west of the river. These supplies 
had now almost totally ceased. Neither soldiers nor pro- 
visions were, to any great amount, now being drawn for the 
eastern armies from those States. We were practically, 
on the other hand, carrying on a war with two peoples 
who had but little intercourse with one another, and 
neither of whom received much aid from the other. Hence 
it was that while it required the continuous presence of 
from 50,000 to 100,000 men to keep the river open, it was 
not to us a channel of commerce, nor a means, to any 
great extent, for the transportation of our armies, or their 
supplies, while the real damage done to the Confederacy 
was the loss of men and munitions of war. This damage 
was immediately repaired on the part of the Confederates, 
by a professed exchange of the prisoners whom they and 



254 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

we had captured and released on parole, and by a conse- 
quent immediate reconscription of these men into their 
army. Thus it was that the 40,000 men whom we had 
cooped up in Vicksburg and Port Hudson, became an 
active force against us in the field ; while the main part of 
our forces which had been employed in the field had to be 
kept stationary to guard the widely-extended communica- 
tions which we had opened. 

But what, in our judgment, threw the most lurid glare 
over the future, as far as these results were concerned, was 
the full assurance which we felt that the advantages which 
these successes had given us would be wholly unimproved 
under the authorities which then controlled our military 
affairs. As soon as we heard of Lee's second invasion 
of our territories, we instantly wrote a letter to Secretary 
Chase, a letter containing the following statements : " Now 
is the golden opportunity for the nation. Not a division 
of the invading army ought to be permitted to recross the 
Potomac, if our military authorities in Washington do 
not know how to secure such a result, I am ready to give 
them a plan which will ensure it. I will now venture to 
predict what will occur under these authorities, if no higher 
wisdom is sought to determine their counsels. No impor- 
tant reinforcements will be called up from Fortress Monroe, 
or anywhere else ; nor will any plan be devised to capture 
the army of General Lee. All that will be done, on the 
other hand, will be to gather up the troops that happen to 
be available in and about Washington, to send these round 
and head the invaders, and drive them back into Virginia, 
just as we drive out a herd of unruly cattle who have 
broken into our grain field ; and while General Lee shall 
escape with all his plunder, his expulsion will be proclaimed 
as one of the great events of the war, and as the sure pre- 
sage of the speedy fall of the Confederacy." 

Immediately after the victory at Gettysburg and the 
fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, we wrote a long com- 
munication to the New York Times, a letter containing 
among others on the then existing status of our national 
affairs, the following statements, the substance of which 
we gave in the Introduction : *' Any individual well ac- 
quainted with military affairs must be aware that the 



THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSOiV. 255 

advantages which should be reaped from our recent 
victories will depend almost wholly upon the use which 
shall be promptly made of the army under General Grant. 
If this army shall be at once united with that of the 
Cumberland for a crushing movement upon the forces 
under General Bragg, or with that of the Potomac for a 
similar movement against General Lee, the war will soon 
be ended. I will venture a prediction, however, as to 
what will occur under our present military authorities. 
All our vast armies will now remain in comparative idle- 
ness, no effective movements being attempted until the 
opening of the campaign next spring. While this general 
inactivity shall continue, indecisive advantages gained 
here and there will be magnified into great and decisive 
victories, while the papers will be crowded with statements 
that the Confederacy is ' on its last legs,' and is * on the 
eve of a final collapse.' While this dull status of our 
affairs shall continue, the Confederacy will have full time 
to recover from the stunning blows it has received, and to 
readjust itself to its new situation. As a consequence, 
after an interval of nine or ten months of stupid inaction, 
the war will be recommenced as in the beginning." All 
who will call to mind the events of the period under con- 
sideration will readily recognise the accuracy with which 
those events were foreshadowed. We never found it 
difficult, as soon as we understood the direction of any of 
our leading campaigns, to predict the results ; and in such 
predictions, as multitudes will bear us witness, we never 
erred. We always, even in the darkest hours of the Re- 
public, predicted the ultimate collapse of the Confederacy; 
but always affirmed that the end would be reached with 
a most needless, exhaustive, and wasteful expenditure of 
blood and treasure. This expenditure was what we per- 
petually endeavoured to prevent 



CHAPTER XIX. 

GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY 
OF THE POTOMAC. 

On the 26th January, 1863, Major-General Joseph Hooker 
assumed the command of the army of the Potomac. Such 
facts as the fbllowing- will sufficiently indicate the state of 
this army at that time. Desertions were occurring-, it is 
affirmed authoritatively, at the rate of 200 per day, while 
the number absent from their regiments from various 
causes, mostly by permission, amounted to 2,922 com- 
missioned officers, and 81,964 non-commissioned officers 
and soldiers. The elation of the Confederates and the 
depression of the Union army at this time is manifest in 
the frequency and boldness of the raids of the cavalry of 
the latter quite within our lines, and the almost unresist- 
ing apathy with which such insults were endured on the 
part of our commanders. On this subject Mr Greeley thus 
speaks. *' One of these raids was made by J. E. B. Stuart 
across the Rappahannock to Dumfries, when 25 waggons 
and some 200 prisoners were taken ; anc thence towards 
Alexandria and around Fairfax Court House, burning the 
railroad bridge across the Accotink, and returning in 
triumph with their spoils ; another by a party of Imboden's 
troopers, farther west from the valley to Romney, where 
the guards of a supply train were surprised and routed, 
72 men, 106 horses, and 27 waggons taken and carried 
off; a third by Fitz Hugh Lee, across the Rappahannock, 
near Falmouth, surprising- a camp and taking 150 prisoners, 
with a loss of 14 men; a fourth by General W. E. Jones, 
in the valley, routing two regiments of Milroy's cavalry, 
and taking 200 prisoners, with a loss of 4 men only ; while 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 257 

a more daring- raid was made by Major White, of Jones's 
command, across the Potomac at Poolsville, takino- 77 
prisoners. Lee further reports that Captain Randolph, 
of the Black Horse cavalry, by various raids into Fanguier 
county, captured over 200 prisoners and several hundred 
stands of arms; and that Lieut. Mosebey (whose name now 
makes its first appearance in a bulletin) " has done much 
to harass the enemy, attacking- him boldly on several 
occasions and capturing- many prisoners." One or two 
minor cavalry exploits, recited by Lee in *' General Order 
No. 29," read too much like romance to be embodied in 
sober history ; yet such was the depression on our side in 
Virginia, such the elation and confidence of the other, such 
the very great advantage enjoyed by Rebel raiders in the 
readiness of the white inhabitants to give them informa- 
tion, and even to scout in quest of it, throughout that 
dreary winter, that nothing that might be asserted of 
Rebel audacity and Federal imbecility is absolutely in- 
credible." 

The reason for the Confederate elation and the 
Union despondency will appear truly mysterious when 
we compare the amount of forces in General Lee's with 
that of the army of the Potomac, and of the entire Union 
forces of the nation at this time. When I was in Wash- 
ington in Januaiy of this year, none of the authorities there 
entertained the idea that the entire available forces of 
General Lee for the defence of Richmond and " the sacred 
soil of Virginia" amounted to over 120,000 or 130,000 
men at the utmost ; and subsequent official information 
evinces the truth that this estimate was much too high. 
According to official report made to the Adjutant- General 
of the United States, October 20th, 1862, the army of the 
Potomac, as we have seen, consisted of 304,609 men of 
all arms. Of these, 207,036 were present for duty, 42,298 
sick, under arrest, and on special duty, while 91,275 were 
absent on leave. These did not include the corps, about 
9,000 strong, under General Dix at Baltimore, and the 
forces at Fortress Monroe, and the two corps under 
Generals Keyes and Peck in the Peninsula. According 
to the report of Mr. Stanton, our Secretary of War, the 
report made to Congress December 4th, 1872, the entire 

17 



258 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Union army would amount by January 1863 to quite 
1,000,000 men, "well armed and equipped." With all 
these forces at command, our Commander-in-Chief and 
Secretary of War, as we have also seen, persuaded Presi- 
dent Lincoln that 60,000 or 70,000 men could not be 
brought to the vicinity of Fortress Monroe to ensure the 
conquest of Virginia and the destruction of the army of 
General Lee. The forces under the immediate command 
of General Hooker, and available for active service, 
amounted to from 125,000 to 140,000 men. All the 
above facts should be kept distinctly in mind, as a means 
■of forming a correct judgment of the events now to be 
•considered. 

As soon as he assumed command, General Hooker set 
about, with all diligence, making all necessary prepara- 
tions for the great campaign to be opened in the early 
spring. As a means, and a fundamental one, to this end, 
General Burnside with the 9th corps, the command of 
which he had reassumed, was sent down to Fortress 
Monroe, to conduct the projected movement on the south 
side of James river. The plan which I had laid before 
the President and others in the early part of January 1863, 
of seizing General Lee's communications, by an adequate 
force, on the south side of this river, while his position at 
Fredericksburg should be turned by a flank movement of 
the army of the Potomac, was most heartily approved by 
General Hooker, as soon as he was made acquainted with 
it, and was adopted by him, on assuming command, as a 
fundamental feature of his plan. Hence the transfer of 
General Burnside and his corps, as above stated. 

By the middle of April, full preparation was made for 
the great movement under consideration. On the 26th of 
the month preceding, however, an event occurred which 
changed the whole face of affairs, and rendered it necessary 
for General Hooker to readjust his whole plan for the cam- 
paign. At the date designated, General Burnside was 
appointed over the department of Ohio, which includes 
Kentucky, and was ordered to take his corps with him. By 
this one order. General Hooker's left arm was violently 
broken, and all his prior calculations were defeated ; it being 
utterly impossible in the absence of this corps to make any 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 259 

effective movement on General Lee's communications south 
of James river. The available force of General Hooker 
was also rendered 30,000 less than it was when he took 
command. In view of the palpable facts of the case, but 
one motive can be assigned for this order, a deliberate 
intent to defeat, or rather prevent, this great movement 
upon General Lee's communications. This movement, or 
one of this identical character, had been by myself per- 
sonally, as we have seen, submitted to the Secretary of 
War, and by him and General Halleck had been con- 
demned and reprobated and argued against before Presi- 
dent Lincoln. Now this very plan was about to be visibly 
carried out under the eye of the nation ; and the success of 
the plan, if permitted to be carried out, no sensible man 
will doubt. The ostensible reason for this order was an 
anticipated invasion of Kentucky. Who can doubt that 
out of the 1,000,000 men in the field, 30,000 could have 
been furnished to prevent that invasion had it occurred, 
which it did not, and this corps have been left where it was ? 
It is undeniable that not a shadow of necessity existed for 
that order ; and I challenge the world to assign any motive 
for it but that under consideration. This, also, may be 
added, that General Halleck was a personal enemy of 
General Hooker, and for this reason, as we shall see here- 
after, acted as his "evil genius." It is a noteworthy fact 
that when the proposition to concentrate some 60,000 to 
80,000 men at Fortress Monroe was under consideration, 
the utter impossibility of furnishing the means of trans- 
portation was urged upon the President by General 
Halleck and the Secretary of War, as an absolute reason 
why the invasion should not be attempted. The ready 
removal, in a very few days, of 30,000 troops from Fortress 
Monroe to Cincinnati, and that under the orders of these 
very men, absolutely demonstrates the hollowness of their 
reasonings in the former case. This, also, should be con- 
sidered here, that as soon as General Burnside arrived with 
his corps at Cincinnati, that corps was taken from him and 
sent down to Vicksburg ; the great ir^asion of Kentucky 
which did occur, the invasion to repel which he and his 
corps were professedly taken from their proper sphere, 
having been repelled by a few hundred cavalry and infantry 



260 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

then in the interior of the State. In judging- of General 
Hooker as the commander of a great army, we should bear 
in mind the fact that just as he was on the eve of carrying 
out the only plan of a great campaign which he was ever 
permitted to attempt to realize, that plan, in one of its 
most essential features, was defeated by his Commander- 
in-Chief. To plan and successfully execute a new cam- 
paign under such circumstances is one of the most difficult 
and perilous tasks that any General can be required to 
undertake. Had the plan which he originally projected 
been carried out, and Buraside's corps been united with 
those at Fortress Monroe and the Peninsula, an army 
nearly or quite 60,000 strong would have been organized 
for the fundamental movement south of James river, and 
General Lee would have found himself assailed, in front 
and rear, by forces outnumbering his own about two to 
one. As it was, he had only the single army under General 
Hooker to dispose of. How General Hooker did conduct 
himself under his new and most unfortunate circumstances, 
unfortunate to himself, and far more so to his country, re- 
mains to be considered. 

The first problem to be solved by General Hooker was 
the transfer of his army from its camp at Falmouth on the 
north side of the Rappahannock river, and directly oppo- 
site to .General Lee's position at Fredericksburg on the 
opposite side of the same river, to a position favourable 
for future operations on the south side of said river. As 
preliminary to his immediate and ultimate purpose, he, 
April 13th, despatched, on a surprise expedition, General 
Stoneman with almost the entire mass of the Union cavalry, 
13,000 men, as General Hooker stated before the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War. General Stoneman 
was ordered to move up on the north side of the Rappa- 
hannock, cross over, at discretion, above the Orange and 
Alexandria Railroad, and, in the language of Mr. Greeley, 
"strike Fitz.Hugh Lee's cavalry brigade (computed at 
2,000) near Culpepper Court House, capture Gordonsville, 
and then pounce on the Fredericksburg and Richmond 
Railroad near Saxton's Junction, cutting telegraphs, rail- 
roads, burning bridges, etc., thence towards Richmond, 
fighting at every opportunity, and harassing by every 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAii'D OF THE ARMY. 26 1 

means the retreat of the Rebel army, which, it was cal 
culated, would now be retiring on Richmond." "Let 
your watchword be fight," ran the order, "and let all 
your orders he. fight, fight, fio^ht ; bearing in mind that 
time is as valuable to the General as the Rebel car- 
casses. It devolves upon you. General, to take the ini- 
tiative in the forward movement of this grand army ; and 
on you and your noble command must depend, in a great 
measure, the extent and brilliancy of our success. Bear 
in mind that celerity, audacity, and resolution, are every- 
thing in war; and especially is it the case in the command 
you have, and the enterprise in which you are about V:> 
embark." 

There was a cavalry officer in General Hooker's army, 
an officer to whom such an important command and such 
an order might have been given with the rational expec- 
tation of realizing the intended results. We refer to 
General Pleasanton. "It is hard," as Mr. Greeley justly 
remarks, " to repress a suspicion that irony lurks in such 
language, when addressed to an officer like George D. 
Stoneman." 

Without stirring the suspicion of the enemy, this expe- 
dition moved for two days up the river, and had com- 
menced crossing over when excessive rains, flooding all 
the streams and rivers, not only necessitated the recall of 
the troops which had crossed, but a delay of further ad- 
vance, and also of the intended movement of the grand 
army until the 27th of the month. Stoneman's great raid, 
the greatest of the kind, we believe, made during the war, 
while it should have been a great success, was, in fact, in 
all details a most miserable failure, accomplishing little to 
the injury of the enemy, and less for the interest of the 
Union cause. 

Here we would beg leave to submit a very important 
question to the military authorities of our country. It 
was one of the striking features of this war, as conducted 
equally by both sides, a feature which peculiarizes it from 
the wars carried on by other nations, that in ver}^ few, if 
any, of our important battles did the cavalry act an 
essential part. With the exception of Fremont at Spring- 
field, and, through General Pleasanton's special influence, 



f262 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

at the battle of Gettysburg, General Sheridan was the first 
if not the only General who made essential use of this 
arm on the battle-field. On such occasions, with very few 
exceptions, our cavalry were off on raids and similar 
expeditions. Now the question which we would submit 
is this : Is it wise at the opening of a great campaign, 
and especially on the eve of a great battle, to send off, for 
any purpose, the mass of the cavalry of an army ? Should 
not, with exceptions very few and far between, the entire 
army be kept present and intact, for the settlement of 
such issues? With 13,000 cavalry present and well used 
at Chancellorsville, and that in connexion with a proper 
force of infantry and artillery, not only would the rout of 
our nth corps have been prevented, but the annihila- 
tion of that of Jackson and the utter defeat of Lee's army 
would have been insured. 

The manner in which General Hooker transferred his 
army from the north to the south side of the Rappahannock, 
utterly deceiving and out-generalling such a commander 
as General Lee, and getting his command, without loss, over 
all the fords of the river, evinces the former as possessed 
of masterly military ability. The moment selected for 
the full opening of the campaign was most propitious. 
General Longstreet, with three divisions of General 
Lee's army, was absent on an expedidon against a Union 
force 14,000 strong at Suffolk. Thus an effective force 
of but about 50,000 men was present with General 
Lee at Fredericksburg. Preparatory to the passage 
of his main army over the river above Fredericksburg, 
General Hooker sent General Sedgwick with the 6th, 
and General Sickles with the 3rd, corps, with orders 
to lay pontoons, and make a crossing some two or 
three miles below the city, and at Pollock's Mill, still 
lower down. Under the impression that it was Hooker's 
intent to pass his whole army over at these points, Lee's 
attention was wholly diverted in this direction, and our 
commander was left free to pass his main force across 
the river at Banks, U.S., and Ely's Fords, and establish 
himself on his enemy's flank at Chancellorsville, some ten 
or twelve miles west of Fredericksburg. In another 
fundamental respect was General Lee deceived and out- 



GENERAL HOOKER IN" COMMAND OF THE ARIMY. 263 

generalled. As soon as the movement upon Chan- 
cellorsville was perfected, General Sickles was ordered 
to follow with rapid marches, and form as a reserve in 
the rear of Hooker's immediate command. This move 
of Sickles, which was visible from Fredericksburg, induced 
Lee to infer that the show below the city was a mere feint, 
and that all our forces at that point had grone to Hooker. 
Hence Lee, leaving his rear almost wholly unprotected, 
moved his whole army to Hooker's front. This was as 
the latter desired and anticipated. 

So far the success of our commander was complete. 
On April 30th matters stood thus. Hooker had under his 
immediate command, at and near Chancellorsville, a force 
of nearly 70.000 men. At the same time, Sedgwick was 
safely established on the south side of the river, with a 
force consisting of his own corps and 6,000 men left 
under his order at Falmouth, a force nearly or quite 
30,000 strong. General Lee in the meantime, now fully 
aware of his enemy's real designs, had moved his entire 
army, a very small force excepted, out of his fortifications 
at Fredericksburg, and established himself midway be- 
tween that city and Hooker's position at Chancellorsville. 
The plan of General Hooker was a very simple, and not un- 
wisely projected, one. It was to form his own lines in front 
of the enemy, wait there until Sedgwick should move up, 
a distance of but six or eight miles, and open the battle 
by an attack on Lee's rear. Hooker was then to pre- 
cipitate his whole army upon the enemy, and crush him 
between these two masses. Nothing appeared more 
practicable than the accomplishment of such a result. 
How could 50,000 men in an open field where the ad- 
vantages were equal for either party, sustain the shock 
of 70,000 men on one side, and 30,000 on the other? 
It was not without seeming good reason that our 
commander said to his associates, as he rode up to the 
spacious brick mansion and tavern at Chancellorsville, 
" I now have Lee's army in one hand, and Richmond in 
the other." The blasphemous utterance with which this 
boast is affirmed to have been accompanied, however, 
would have led any prudent man, who believes in God 
and in an overruling Providence, to anticipate the disasters 



264 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

which followed. When the elder Napoleon faced the ad- 
monition, "Man proposes, but God disposes," with the 
impious boast, "I propose, and I dispose," the utterance 
itself revealed the fact that his mind had lost its balance, 
and that his fall was near. 

General Hooker's plan, we would say, has very im- 
portant precedents in its favour, one of Buonaparte's most 
signal victories in Italy having, for example, been gained, 
and that in very perilous circumstances, in accordance 
with this identical principle. The plan, however, unless 
prosecuted with very great vigour, and unity of action on 
both sides, is obviously a most perilous one. How it was 
carried out in this case will be seen hereafter. There is 
still another plan which deserves special consideration, 
provided we would correctly understand what is best to 
be done under similar circumstances. After the safe 
crossing of his main army had been secured by the feint 
of Generals Sickles and Sedgwick below Fredericksburg, 
suppose that the corps of each of these Generals, instead 
of that of the former, had been brought around to Chan- 
cellorsville. General Hooker would, in that case, have had 
all his forces under his immediate command, and would 
have been able to precipitate an overwhelming force 
directly upon his antagonist, and would have saved all 
peril of having his subordinate first and then himself 
assaulted successively by the army of General Lee. This, 
under the circumstances, was, unquestionably, the prefer- 
able plan of the two. Buonaparte, when he ordered the 
movement to which we have referred, knew his men, and 
knew well that his orders would be obeyed implicitly, and 
executed with the utmost vigour. Hooker did not know, 
and had good reasons for not intrusting too much to his 
subordinates, and hence would have done better had he 
kept all his forces under his immediate command. 

There was still another plan submitted to and urged 
upon the adoption of General Hooker, a plan submitted 
by General Pleasanton, which our commander should have 
very deeply pondered. In passing with his cavalry in 
advance of the army over the Rappahannock, he captured 
a number of prisoners, and among them an officer of 
General Lee's staff and board of engineers. In the 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 265 

pocket of this officer was found a journal containing a 
record of the doings of the Confederate army for a long- 
time previous. In this journal was recorded a visit of 
General Lee and his Generals to Chancellorsville, and of 
the conclusion to which they arrived, namely, that the 
next great battle would, in all probability, be at that 
place. In this journal, also, was an account of the pre- 
paration of a circular road, commencing at a point mid- 
way between this place and Fredericksburg, and running 
round to the west of Chancellorsville. Apprehending, at 
once, that the object of the road was a military one, he 
conjectured, very naturally, that said object was to enable 
the Confederates, by a flank movement around our right 
wing, to attack our army in front and rear at the same 
time. He accordingly went to General Hooker, and 
urged that the nth with another corps should be de- 
ployed on the road from Chancellorsville to Spottsylvania ; 
that, this latter place being taken possession of, our line 
of battle should be formed, with our left resting upon the 
Rappahannock, and our right upon Spottsylvania. By 
this disposition, all our forces would have been in proper 
battle array, for purposes of offence or defence, and could, 
at the proper moment, have been as a united force con- 
centrated upon the enemy in front. As matters stood, our 
various corps lay about in scattered fragments hardly 
capable of united action. As our line would then have 
lain directly across the road referred to, the possibility of 
any flank movement upon our right, or anywhere else, 
would have been rendered impossible. By our occupancy 
of Spottsylvania, also, the retreat of General Lee in the 
direction of Richmond, in case of defeat or a desire to 
escape from his present position, would have been rendered 
impossible. While our forces were thus arranged, I 
remark once more. General Hooker could have held his 
position until Sedgwick, had he been defeated, as he was, 
could have been brought up with 30,000 men from Falmouth 
and united them with our army at Chancellorsville. The 
preponderance of force on our side would then have been 
so great as to render the total defeat of General Lee a 
certainty. Every consideration demanded the prompt 
adoption of this wise advice. General Hooker's mmd, 



266 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

however, was too much occupied with what was imme- 
diately before him, as he was waiting the hearing General 
Sedgwick's guns in General Lee's rear, to give heed to 
any such advice. The results can be readily detailed. 

On May ist, General Hooker, having ascertained, by 
reconnoissance, that for three miles in his front no Con- 
federates could be found, advanced Syke's regulars (3rd 
division, 5th corps) down the old 'pike towards Fredericks- 
burg. This force was followed by a part of the 2nd 
corps, and by two other divisions of the 5th corps, on a 
road still farther north. The nth, followed by the 12th, 
were deployed still farther in a westerly direction from 
Chancellorsville. The intention of General Hooker was to 
have advanced his main forces some two or three miles 
forward in the direction of Fredericksburg. General 
Sykes had not advanced one half this distance, however, 
before he met the enemy advancing in numbers far greater 
than his own. After a severe conflict, in which there was 
considerable loss on both sides, our forces were, under 
orders from General Hooker, required to fall back. The 
initiative was thus in favour of the Confederates. This, 
however, was a matter of no concern to our commander, 
as he was waiting for the time to make the contemplated 
assault upon the enemy in conjunction with General 
Sedgwick, who was expected, in conformity with the plan 
of the campaign as understood by him and General 
Hooker, to cross his entire force over the river, and move 
without a moment's delay to the rear of General Lee's 
army and open the battle as soon as the required position 
was reached. During all the day. May 2nd, our com- 
mander waited in breathless expectation to hear the sound 
of his subordinate's guns, when 30,000 men were to be 
precipitated upon the enemy by a front attack. The day 
passed, however, without anything being heard from 
Sedgwick. At 9 in the evening, a positive order, re- 
ceived two hours later, was forwarded, requiring General 
Sedgwick to move instantly, or at 12 in the morning, 
upon Chancellorsville, and open the battle as above stated. 
General Warren, the bearer of Hooker's message, made 
known to Sedgwick the former's critical condition, and 
urged an immediate movement. At 3 o'clock in the 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 267 

morning, General Warren found General Sedgwick across 
the river, but with his army motionless. It was quite 1 1 
a.m., however, before Sedgwick's arrangements were com- 
pleted for storming the heights of Fredericksburg, although 
at an early hour he was reinforced by General Gibbon with 
6,000 men, who had crossed over and entered the city. 
The heights referred to were readily carried, but a small 
force having been left. So was an advanced position, 
Marye's hill, beyond, where the enemy had concentrated all 
his available forces. 200 prisoners and some guns were 
captured by these movements. The way now being open, 
our General, with strange stupidity leaving Genera] Gibbon 
with his 6,000 men at Fredericksburg, moved forward to 
Salem church, some three or four miles in the direction of 
Chancellorsville, arriving at this point at 5 p.m. instead of 
6 a.m., as he was ordered to do, and undeniably might have 
done. The night, it must be borne in mind, was a very clear 
moonlight one, a night in which troops could be moved 
about as readily as in the daytime. Yet no movements 
whatever were made until quite eleven hours after it was 
required to be commenced. At 5 p.m.. General Lee, 
released from all heavy pressure in his front, was able, by 
forces sent to his rear, not only to stop the farther ad- 
vance of our General, but, on the next day, to drive him, 
with the loss of 4,601 brave men, across the Rappahan- 
nock. Thus 30,000 of our best forces were worse than lost 
to our army in this campaign, and that on account of 
inexcusable dilatoriness on the one hand, and open dis- 
obedience to positive orders on the other; and these at 
the most critical moment of said campaign. In any 
country but ours, such acts would be treated as high 
crimes and misdemeanours. In ours, however, Generals 
high in command became, a la mode McClellan, schooled 
to a stolid indifference to orders received ; such acts, also, 
being no real crimes with our supreme military authorities. 
While numbers of our commanders were reeking with such 
crimes, and the nation was bleeding at every pore as a 
consequence, but one such criminal received even the 
semblance of punishment. General Sedgwick was a brave 
and able corps commander on the field when under the 
immediate control of a superior in command. For a 



268 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

separate command, to say the least, he most palpably 
evinced fundamental disqualifications. Had General 
Sedgwick promptly obeyed the order under consideration 
when that order was first presented to him, — that is, at 1 1 
p.m., May 2nd, or at 3 o'clock the next morning, when 
compliance was urged upon him by the most weighty 
considerations possible, and urged by such a messenger 
as General Warren, — and had the former kept his forces 
intact, as he should have done, it is undeniable that by 
8 or 10 o'clock, May 3rd, 30,000 men would have been 
precipitated upon the rear of General Lee at a moment 
when, in consequence of Jackson's corps, 25,000 strong, 
being miles away on our right flank, the latter could have 
had but little if any more than 30,000 men under his 
immediate command, and when the mass of these were in 
a death-struggle with superior forces in their front. The 
deduction is undeniable that but for disobedience to 
positive orders and inexcusable delay on the part of 
General Sedgwick, the destruction of General Lee's army 
would have been inevitable. 

Let us now direct our attention to the events which did 
occur. May 2nd, on the field at Chancellorsville. In our 
immediate front very little fighting occurred, as General 
Hooker was, as we have said, waiting to hear the sound of 
Sedgwick's guns in the rear of General Lee. Early in 
the day, General Jackson, with his veterans, 25,000 strong, 
commenced his celebrated flank movement to the rear 
of the right wing of our army. His forces marched, of 
course, on the wide circular road to which we have referred. 
To mask this great movement, a considerable force, but 
very much smaller than the main one, moved, parallel with 
the latter, on the old road which lay between our army and 
the circular one on which Jackson's main force was moving. 
With this smaller force, and with it only, our scouts and 
reconnoitering parties came in contact, and sharp fighting 
on both sides ensued. At 10 a.m. a rifled battery opened 
upon this body, threw it into confusion, and compelled it 
to abandon the road on which it was moving. At i p.m. 
General Birney, with his division, followed by another, of 
the divisions of Sickles's, corps which had been advanced 
between the 4th and 12th corps, charged the passing 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 269 

column with such force that he captured and brought off 
500 prisoners. At sunset Birney formed his division in 
hollow squares on this interior road, all supposing that the 
advance of any other forces of the enemy was effectively 
barred. While these minor conflicts were going on on 
this interior road, the Coiafederates were marching without 
the least molestation, or suspicion, on our part, of the main 
movement which was being made. Never was a great 
movement more skilfully planned, more wisely and per- 
fectly worked, and more effectively executed, than was 
that under consideration. While our commander and his 
subordinates were aware that a flank movement in the 
direction of our right wing was being made, none had the 
remotest suspicion of its gigantic proportions, until the 
avalanch descended with crushing weight upon the nth 
corps of our army. Early in the morning, as Hooker rode 
along in front of his right wing, he expressed an appre- 
hension that it was too far extended, and not strongly 
posted. Generals Slocum and Howard, however, assured 
him that they were ready and adequate for any emergency. 
Still later, as he states, he cautioned General Howard to 
be on his guard against a flank attack. 

Thus matters stood till about 6 p.m., when Stonewall 
Jackson fell with his corps, 25,000 strong, upon the exposed 
flank of that of Howard. At Shiloh, the Confederates, as 
they emerged from the forest and opened the attack, found 
the commands of General Sherman and others quietly 
cooking their breakfasts. At Chancellorsville, Jackson 
found portions of the first division which he struck, that of 
General Devens, as quietly and unsuspiciously, with their 
arms stacked, preparing their suppers, and all without any 
apprehensions whatever of approaching danger. In neither 
ca'se were any pickets or reconnoitering parties out to 
guard against the possibility of a surprise. Such palpable 
and culpable negligence, however Generals may afterwards 
have redeemed their reputation, deserves the deep repro- 
bation of the nation. This division was, of course, over- 
whelmed at once, its commander being wounded, and every 
one of its Generals and Colonels either killed or disabled, 
and one-third of its number slaughtered or captured. As 
the fugitives rushed over the ground occupied by the next 



270 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

division, that of General Schurz, they found that that divi- 
sion had fled without waiting- to form to shoot, or be shot 
at, at all. All attempts to rally proved abortive, and despite 
Howard's frantic efforts, on rushed the confused mass upon 
the third division which lay in their way, that of General 
Steinwehr. Here the semblance of an organization was 
maintained. The mass of the nth corps, however, wildly 
rushed down the Chancellorsville Road, spreading every- 
where a panic and threatening a stampede of ourwhole army. 

The corps of General Sickles, originally located as a 
reserve behind Chancellorsville, and subsequently, as we 
have seen, far advanced between the nth and 12th corps, 
was placed in a very critical position by the stampede of 
the nth corps and the rapid pursuit of Jackson — the 
liability of being wholly cut off from our army. Birney, 
with his division, was too far away to be of present use, 
and Sickles' s 3rd division was employed by General 
Hooker, and could not be withdrawn. 

At this crisis General Pleasanton, with his cavalry, 
500 men, and field artillery, appeared upon the scene, and 
threw himself directly in front of Jackson's advance. 
Picking up, as far as he was able, the guns and ammuni- 
tion abandoned by Howard's corps, and adding these to 
his own, he formed a battery of twenty-one guns, all 
doubly and some trebly shotted with canister, and care- 
fully pointed, so that every shot was likely to take effect ; 
the open ground in front of this battery, the ground over 
which the Confederates must advance, being about 200 
yards wide. This was a littlfe before dusk. Perceiving 
that his guns could not be got into position and made 
ready before the Confederates would be upon them, and 
that nothing but a charge of cavalry could keep the 
enemy in check for the time needed, General Pleasanton 
turned to Colonel Keenan of the 8th Pennsylvania, and 
gave out this order: "You must charge into those woods 
with your regiment, and hold the Rebels" (25,000 strong) 
" until I can get some of these guns into position. You 
must do it at whatever qost." With a calm smile, the 
brave Colonel, well knowing what obedience would pro- 
bably cost him and his equally brave associates, — with a 
calm smile, the old patriot replied, " I will," " and into the 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 27 1 

jaws of death rode the five hundred." In ten minutes he was 
dead, and very many of his associates lay dead or bleeding- 
around him. The time requisite for full preparation was 
gained, however, and the Confederates emerged in force 
from the woods. They appeared at first with a Union 
flag, and cried out, " Don't fire. We are your own men." 
On discovering, which they soon did, that they were 
known, they took down this colour, raising half a dozen or 
a dozen of their own flags, and poured fire upon our men. 
At this moment, on the word of command from General 
Pleasanton, our whole line of guns was simultaneously 
discharged. The turn had now come for the Confederates 
to bleed and to run. Their whole advance disappeared in 
an instant, the few that remained standing fleeing back 
into the woods. Three times Jackson's column advanced 
upon those guns, once approaching within fifty yards of 
them ; and three times the masses of those who were 
pushed forward were mowed down by the annihilating fire 
to which they were subjected. At length, as darkness 
closed over the scene, the enemy, weary with being 
slaughtered, and that to no purpose but self-destruction, 
fled precipitately and in confusion. For a considerable 
distance they were pursued by our infantry, who, on 
coming upon forces far outnumbering their own, returned, 
bringing quite a number of prisoners with them. 

It was directly under and within full range of this 
fearful fire of our artillery, the fire above described, that 
the brave General Jackson fell. When being borne off on 
a litter, one of the bearers was shot down, and the General 
fell heavily to the ground, receiving very severe injuries 
in addition to his previous wounds. The Confederates 
claimed that their General fell through an accidental fire 
of their own men. A Confederate officer, one of Jackson's 
staff, and who was near him when he fell, stated to 
General Pleasanton after the war, that there was no 
reasonable doubt that their General, as well as his litter 
bearer afterwards, received his mortal wounds through the 
fire of the Union guns. Be that as it may, the loss to the 
Confederates in this one man overbalanced all their gains 
through this celebrated movement. Through the prisoners 
above referred to, General Pleasanton was informed of the 



272 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

fall of Jackson and other of his leading officers. Dark-* 
ness now put an end to the conflict until the next morning. 
To General Pleasanton belongs the high honour of having, 
at the most critical moment of the conflict, stopped and 
driven back Jackson's advance, and inflicting such an irre- 
parable loss upon the Confederate army and cause. Not 
long after this. General Sickles returned from his advance, 
and posted his corps behind General Pleasanton' s battery, 
increasing the number of its guns to upwards of forty. 

While this flank movement of Jackson had been in 
progress, General Lee had been drawing his main forces 
near to our front and left flank, filling the forests with 
sharp-shooters, and stationing his artillery upon elevations 
favourable for effective service in the conflict which was 
expected on the next day. At dawn the next morning, 
while heavy columns were pushed forward, and a teazing 
fire was opened along our whole front, no decisive attacks 
were made in these directions. General Lee was waiting 
for a decisive effect, through the attack on our right rear, 
just as General Hooker was waiting to hear the sound of 
Sedgwick's guns. No body of men ever made more 
strenuous efforts to accomplish the part assigned them 
than did the remainder of Jackson's corps on the morning 
of May 3rd, led as that corps now was by General J. E. 
B. Stuart, General A. P. Hill having been disabled soon 
after Jackson was, and that under the fire of Pleasanton's 
guns. Time and again did those veterans rush upon 
Pleasanton's battery, now, as we have said, increased to 
upwards of forty guns, all managed with the greatest 
determination and ability. Those columns, however, as 
often as they came within the sweep of those guns were 
shattered and broken to pieces, and scattered, with dread- 
ful slaughter. Thus the carnage continued, regiment 
after regiment melting away, as they charged up to the 
muzzles of those guns, until, his ammunition beginning to 
fail, General Sickles sent to General Hooker for reinforce- 
ments. When Major Tremaine, who bore this message, 
arrived at head-quarters, he found that our army was 
without a commander, and returned without an answer, 
General Hooker lying senseless, and by his staff supposed 
to be dying, on account of a stunning shock which he had 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 273 

received by means of a cannon ball striking a pillar 
against which he was leaning. Sending for help a second 
time, and receiving no response, the ammunition of his 
guns being now totally exhausted. General Sickles with- 
drew to his second line of defences. The Confederate 
forces had been so shattered and broken to pieces in their 
previous assaults, that a full half hour passed before they 
approached our forces in their new position. In his 
testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War, General Sickles affirmed, and that for the best of 
reasons, that had aid, as requested, even 10,000 of the 
30,000 troops that stood idle near him, been sent to him, 
a signal victory would have been obtained. This aid 
General Couch, who ranked next to General Hooker, and 
who now had full command, refused or neglected to send, 
hesitating to assume the authority now actually in his 
hands, and which no one but himself could assume. 

All the aid which General Sickles received was from two 
divisions of Couch's corps, those of Generals French and 
Hancock, who forced back the left of the attacking force, 
then threatening General Meade's front. Aside from this 
little help the whole that remained of Jackson's corps bore 
down upon Sickles. After sustaining the shock until his 
ammunition was almost wholly exhausted, and after, with 
five terrible bayonet charges, repelling the advances of the 
enemy and capturing eight flags, our General drew off his 
corps a second time. In this dreadful conflict, this single 
corps which "bore the burden and heat of the day" 
had two of its division commanders, Generals Berry and 
Whipple, killed, and one other General wounded. General 
Mott, of the New Jersey brigade, and lost in killed and 
wounded upwards of 4,000 out of 18,000 of its brave men. 
It lost, however, not a single gun, save one at daylight, 
and no prisoners ; while it took several hundred, and 
not a few flags from the enemy. At length, General 
Couch, who failed in resolution and bravery to order need- 
ful help, help lying directly before him, to his associates 
who were being pressed by overwhelming forces, did 
evince the sublime courage to order a retreat of our main 
forces, one mile from Chancellorsville, back towards the 
Rappahanncck. 

18 



274 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

At noon General Hooker was restored to consciousness, 
and reassumed the command of his army. At this time this 
memorable battle of Sunday was practically ended, and 
General Lee felt himself at liberty to turn his attention to 
Sedgwick, holding- him in check for the remainder of the 
day, and on Monday, May 4th, assaulting him in force and, 
as we have seen, driving him headlong and at a fearful 
loss over the Rappahannock, at Bank's Ford. At evening 
General Hooker held a council of war with his corps 
commanders, with no decisive results. On the morrow, 
apprehending a flood which might carry off our pontoon 
bridges and occasion a total failure of provisions, our 
army was safely recrossed to the north banks of the river 
which, a few days before, it had passed over with such high 
hopes and assurances. In their return they brought back 
one more gun than they took with them, and inflicted upon 
the enemy an injury which they were less able to bear than 
we were to endure what we received. Our loss, in killed, 
wounded, and missing, amounted to the enormous sum of 
17,197 men, just 83 more than one half of this number 
being lost by two corps, those of Sickles and Sedgwick. 
One of the most remarkable events connected with this battle 
is the fact that an army 70,000 strong stood by and saw a 
single corps of 18,000 men, bleeding at every pore, bearing 
up against overwhelming odds, and sustaining the main 
burden of the conflict ; and all this without sending any 
needful aid, though often solicited to do so. How great 
was the numerical loss of the Confederates is not known. 
On the field at Chancellorsville, they must have suffered 
more than we did, they, for the most part, being the 
assailing party, and in their assaults the masses of their 
forces were pushed forward, as if for the purpose of being 
slaughtered. 

Of the extent to which General Hooker is to be held 
responsible for the failure of this campaign, we are now 
able to approach a correct judgment. The error of 
sending off the mass of his cavalry at the commencement 
of the campaign, while it should be set down as a capital 
error, was an error equally common with the ablest Con- 
federate and Union commanders, an error which pecu- 
liarized the conduct of this war, in almost all the armies on 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 275 

both sides. The fact that General Hooker at the opening 
of the campaign fully out-generalled such a commander as 
General Lee, evinces the former as a strategist- of no ordi- 
nary character. Had General Sickles been in General 
Sedgwick's place, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
the campaign of General Hooker would have been, 
throughout, a great and most decisive success, and the 
plan of the latter in dividing his forces as he did would be 
set down to his great credit in history. Nor can it be 
set down to his discredit that he misjudged Sedgwick, all 
that was known of this General marking him as trustworthy 
as far as energy and obedience to orders are concerned. 
Nor can he be held responsible for Howard's error. The 
\ misfortune which happened to our army in consequence of 
j its being without a head for so many hours during the 
I forenoon of May 3rd, cannot be charged as a fault in its 
! commander, but must be set down as a great calamity 
I incident to war everywhere. Nor, we remark finally, did 
( he act unwisely, but prudently, in withdrawing his army to 
I the north side of the Rappahannock, at the time and under 
jj the circumstances in which he ordered that movement. 
The rising flood threatened to carry off all the pontoon 
bridges in his rear, and to render fording and all other 
means of crossing impossible. He had not provisions to 
subsist his army four days longer in the place where he 
was, and could not have drawn the necessary supplies 
from the country around him. Every consideration of 
wisdom and prudence required him to act as he did, and 
to leave his reputation to posterity. One mistake he did 
make, and that was not complying with the advice of 
General Pleasanton to extend his right wing across that 
circular road, and thus prevent the possibility of Jackson's 
raid. 

Three causes adequately account for the failure of this 
j campaign, causes for neither of which can General Hooker 
I be held responsible. The first and most important of 
I all, and one which is fatal in any great movement, is 
Sedgwick's disobedience to orders and excessive dilatori- 
ness. To say that he could not have got his corps in 
marching order in four hours, and have been ready to 
have started at three in the morning, is to evince blind- 



276 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

ness to. the most palpable facts of energetic warfare. 
Wellington's army was in motion in one hour after he 
heard of Buonaparte's advance. Such is the promptitude 
of action in war generally. Four hours is the utmost that 
can be asked for General Sedgwick. Had he started thus 
early, he would have encountered less obstacles in his ad- 
vance than he did meet, and would not have found McLaws 
across his path on his arrival at Salem church. In other 
words, had he started as he might have done, he would, 
by 8 or 9 a.m., have fallen directly upon General Lee's 
rear, and insured his disastrous defeat. The second cause 
was the rout of the nth corps by means of Jackson's raid. 
The character of General Howard as a soldier and a man we 
hold in deep esteem. That he brought a great calamity upon 
our army by permitting his corps to be taken by surprise, 
is undeniable. The last cause is the criminal failure, or 
refusal, of General Couch, at the critical moment when 
'General Hooker was disabled, to assume command and 
order needful help to a corps which was contending against 
such fearful odds, and when the fate of the day obviously 
turned upon sending the help asked for. Either of these 
causes is, of itself, sufficient to account for the loss of a 
battle. All taken together, most fully account for the 
failure of a great campaign. 

No historian with whom we are acquainted has ex- 
plained the secret of the wonderful success of this celebrated 
raid of General Jackson. To give the reader a distinct 
understanding of the subject, we will now recur to it again. 
For the special information which we have received upon 
the subject, we are indebted to General Pleasanton. In 
the next movement of our army upon Richmond, General 
Lee of course understood that there would be an attempt 
to turn his position at Fredericksburg by a flank movement 
over the river, either above or below the city. Several 
miles above the city are three fords, at no great distance 
from each other. Over each and all of these an army can 
be readily passed when the water is not high, and at all 
times, excessive floods excepted, by means of pontoon 
bridges. At these points it was obvious that our army, 
should it cross above the city, would attempt at least a 
passage. All the roads from these fore's unite at Chancel- 



GENERAL HOOKER IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 277 

lorsville, as their common centre. Hence the Confederate 
commanders concluded that should our army cross at these 
fords it would be concentrated at this one point, and that 
almost of necessity. They accordingly surveyed with the 
greatest care all these grounds, calculated the probable 
location of the parts of our army, their facilities for offensive 
and defensive operations, and their exposures to successful 
assaults. It became manifest to those commanders that 
on the arrival of our army at Chancellorsville the main and 
almost exclusive attention of our commander and his asso- 
ciates would be fixed in the direction of Fredericksburg, 
the only point from which the remotest danger would be 
anticipated ; that, as a consequence, our rear would be 
very likely to be left, for the first day or two at least, care- 
lessly guarded ; and that if our forces, our right wing 
especially, could be effectively assaulted in the front and 
rear at the same time, the most fatal results to the Union 
army would most probably arise. It became obvious that 
on the old road running westward, and south of Chan- 
cellorsville, from the point to which General Lee's first 
advance from Fredericksburg would be made, a contem- 
plated flank movement could not be effected, that road 
lying too near our army. If, on the other hand, a new 
road should be prepared, a road circling round from the 
point referred to, to the west of the position where our 
army would be located, this great flank movement might 
be made, and our army might be kept in perfect ignorance 
of what was being done until the crushing avalanch should 
descend upon us. It was in view of such a contingency 
that this road was fully prepared long before our army 
crossed the Rappahannock. It was on this road that 
Jackson moved his columns, keeping, at the same time, 
small bodies moving on the old road referred to, and this 
as means, which proved effective, of diverting the attention 
of our Generals from his main movement. When these 
small forces were assaulted and driven off, and Birney's 
division was formed in hollow squares across this old road, 
all suspicion of any peril to our rear was wholly allayed. 
This was as General Jackson anticipated. Here we have 
the only apology or excuse for General HDward for the 
unguarded state in which all his outposts. ;-^5. e found when 



278 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Jackson's assault was made. The above facts render fully 
evident the great wisdom and foresight of the Confederate 
commanders, on the one hand, and as fully explain the 
secrets of Jackson's success in the movement under con- 
sideration, on the other. 

Here we have fully evinced the fundamental error of 
our commanders in their attempted movements in single 
lines upon Richmond, in the directions taken by Generals 
Burnside, Hooker, and Grant. At every defensible point 
on the roads where their advances must have been made, 
they were certain to be confronted by the whole Confede- 
rate army located behind the most formidable fortifications, 
prepared long beforehand for such contingencies. When 
General Grant, for example, arrived at Spotsylvania, he 
found General Lee there with his army distributed behind 
impregnable earthworks prepared long before, and sodded 
for future preservation. So it was, as we shall see here- 
after, at every point at which General Grant met General 
Lee, in the march of the former from Culpepper to Peters- 
burg. Our commander literally led forth his great army 
as " sheep for the slaughter," to be "killed all the day 
long," and that for no available purpose. Had General 
Burnside, with an unavoidable sacrifice of much of his 
army, succeeded in driving the Confederates from Frede- 
ricksburg, he would, immediately after, have encountered 
General Lee at Spotsylvania, behind fortifications just as 
formidable as those which had been previously carried, 
and so on at every defensible point on our advance to 
Richmond ; the certain result being, that before its arrival 
at the city named it would have melted away and become 
powerless for effective service, just as that of General 
Grant did in its wild and stupid and desperate march 
above referred to. The excuse for General Hooker is 
that by moving his army as he did to Chancellorsville he 
necessitated General Lee to fight a decisive battle in the 
open country, a battle in which a defeat of the Confede- 
rates would have insured their capture, or rendered them 
powerless for future resistance. We should also bear in 
mind that Richmond was always approachable from other 
directions, where no such obstacles existed. 



CHAPTER XX. 

GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL.— 

GETTYSBURG. 

Immediately after the triumph of the Confederates at 
Chancellorsville, General Lee determined on a second 
invasion of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The immediate 
considerations which determined him to adopt this bold 
measure were the mustering out of about 20,000 of our 
forces under General Hooker, in consequence of the ex- 
piration of their term of service, on the one hand, and the 
addition to his own army of about 25,000 men, in conse- 
quence of the return of General Longstreet's corps, on the 
other. The main consideration was the assurance which 
the Confederate authorities had unquestionably received, 
that should they advance into Pennsylvania and gain a 
signal victory over the Union army there, there would be 
an immediate uprising of the Copperhead element of the 
Northern States, the element so bitterly opposed to the 
war itself, and to the emancipation measures of the 
Government. To these considerations General Lee refers 
in his report, in which he gives his reasons for the measure 
under consideration. Having given the military con- 
siderations, he adds : " In addition to these results, it 
was hoped that other valuable results might be attained by 
military success." Having perfected all preparations, the 
Confederate commander, June 3rd, put his army in 
motion ; A. P. Hill, with his corps, being left behind, 
ivith instructions to make aM possible demonstrations to 
mask the great movement which was being made with all 
possible expedition on and up the south side of the Rappa- 
hannock, (jur commander, however, was soon made 



280 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

aware that General Lee was moving- in force to the west, 
and around our right. General Pleasanton, now in com- 
mand of our cavalr}% was sent with his cavalry and an in- 
fantr}^ force to Catlett's Station, on the Alexandria railroad, 
to ascertain what was going on in that quarter. Passing- 
his force over the Rappahannock, and moving in the 
direction of Culpepper Court House, he soon found him- 
self confronted with the main army of General Lee. In a 
very severe engagement with General J. E. B. Stuart, in 
command of the Confederate cavalr}% aided by a large force 
of infantry, a conflict occurred in which we lost about 500, 
and the Confederates, as they officially acknowledged, lost 
upwards of 600 men. Having fully accomplished the 
object of his bold and hazardous reconnoisance, General 
Pleasanton recrossed the Rappahannock, and reported the 
facts to General Hooker. Still our commander, yet in 
doubt about the real intent of his antagonist, remained 
stationar}% leaving General Pleasanton to watch the foe, 
determine his movements, and hold terrible fights with his 
cavalr}\ On June 14th and 15th, however, events occurred 
which revealed the purpose of the enemy and the peril of 
the Union cause to the eyes, not only of our commander 
and the Government, but of the whole nation. At this 
time our army, 10,000 strong, under General Milroy, at 
Winchester, was suddenly assaulted by the Confederate 
army and driven headlong, with the loss of quite half its 
number, across the Potomac. Immediately after this, the 
Confederate army, from 70,000 to 90,000 strong, passed 
over from the sacred soil of Virginia on to the free soil of 
Pennsylvania. At this time, our Government taking the 
alarm, the President i'ssued a call to the States of Pennsyl- 
vania, New York, j\Iar}'land, and Ohio, for 1 20,000 militia 
to drive back, or to aid in driving back, the invaders ; about 
50,000 in all responding in time to have been effectively 
employed in the campaign. On June i8th General Hooker 
began to move his army northward, keeping between the 
enemy and Washington, which the former showed some 
disposition to attack. On the 26th he crossed the Poto- 
mac near Edward's Ferr}% and moved to Frederick. 

As soon as the fact of this invasion became known, I 
wrote a communication to Secretar}^ the late Chief Justice, 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 251 

Chase, a communication containing the following- state- 
ments : "Now is the golden opportunity for this nation. 
Not a debris of the invading army ought to be permitted 
to recross the Potomac. If our military authorities do not 
know what to do to insure that result, I will myself, if re- 
quested to do it, present a plan which will, with perfect 
certainty, secure this end, and thus, at one blow, close up 
this war. I will now, however, frankly tell you what will be 
done under the ruling of the military authorities at Wash- 
ington. The thought of capturing General Lee's army will 
not be entertained at all. Nor will there be any concentra- 
tion of the national forces ; not even a man will be brought 
up from the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, or from any other 
point, for this or for any other purpose. On the other hand, 
General Hooker's army, just as it is, and 'be the same 
more or less,' will be sent round to head that of General 
Lee, and drive it back again over the Potomac, at the 
points where it crossed. General Lee will thus escape with 
all his plunder. In other \vords, our military authorities will 
do with the invading army what our farmers do when herds 
of unruly cattle break into their fields of grain, namely, 
head the intruders and drive them out at the places where 
they entered, and then send them forth to repeat the mis- 
chief as opportunities may present. This is just what and 
all that will be done in the presence of this golden oppor- 
tunity." Such is the statement which we made in that 
communication. We shall see how the prediction con- 
tained therein was afterwards verified. 

Every reflecting mind must perceive that as soon as 
General Lee's army crossed the Potomac, the heart and 
soul and all the vitality of the Confederacy lay, under the 
eye of the nation, in the State of Pennsylvania. Had this 
one army been annihilated or captured, the Confederacy 
must of necessity have collapsed in less than three months, 
as it did immediately after the surrender of Generals Lee 
and Johnston, two years subsequent to this. All the Con- 
federate forces in the Carolinas and Virginia, a few ex- 
cepted to do garrison duty, were with General Lee, on free 
soil ; only a single brigade under General Wise having been 
leit in Richmond for the protection of the capital of the 
Confederacy. 



282 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

What was the amount of forces within calling- distance, 
and fully available for the accomplishment of the results 
referred to? General Hooker's army, reduced as it had 
been from the causes designated, still numbered quite 
90,000 men, the number that fought at Gettysburg. In 
the fortifications in and about Washington were quite 
60,000 more, kept there to protect the capital in case our 
army was defeated in the expected battle with General 
Lee. A force 1 1,000 strong was then located at Maryland 
Heights. Quite 6,000 men were located in Baltimore. At 
Suffolk, as we have seen, were 14,000 men under General 
Peck, and another quite as large at Yorktown, and the 
White House above, in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe. 
Then from 5,000 to 10,000 more might have been brought 
up from the Carolinas, and sufficient forces have been 
left behind for garrison duty. It is perfectly undeniable 
that, at the least, 30,000 men might have been drawn from 
the Carolinas and the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, and 
brought up to Baltimore in full time to have taken an 
effective part in this campaign. If to these we add the 
11,000 at Maryland Heights, and the amount which might 
have been furnished at Baltimore, we have a force of be- 
tween 40,000 and 50,000 men, a force with which our army 
that fought at Gettysburg might have been reinforced at 
that point, and prior to the time when the battle there oc- 
curred. While the 50,000 militia were being called into 
the field, no sensible man will deny that at least 30,000 
of the regular army might have been drawn from the 
Western Departments, brought to Harrisburg, and united 
with the Pennsylvania militia force, in time to have 
acted an essential part in a grand movem.ent upon the 
army of General Lee. In a single week. General Pleas- 
anton brought a considerable body of infantry, cavalry, and 
artillery from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Washington. We 
should stultify ourselves if we should question the fact 
that from an army of 1,000,000 men 30,000 could have 
been furnished by the Western Departments, and brought 
,(0 Harrisburg in the time designated. Suppose now that 
while an army of 140.000 men had been concentrated under 
General Hooker, or Meade, in the vicinity of Gettysburg, 
and another 60,000 strong under another General had been 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 283 

organized at Harrisburg, both armies ready at the right 
moment to be precipitated upon the enemy on our soil, 
40,000 men had been sent from Washington up the Poto- 
mac, and had seized all the passes where General Lee could 
have recrossed that river back into Virginia. Surrounded 
by such a circle of fire as this, what would have become of 
his army ? That army entire, we say, without fear of con- 
tradiction, would have been inevitably captured, and that 
without the loss of 10,000 men on both sides. Nothing in 
war can be more practicable than the combination of forces 
above indicated, and this was the identical plan we had 
distinctly in mind when we wrote to Secretary Chase. 
Such a plan, however, no plan of any kind for the capture 
of an army, whatever the facilities for that end might be, 
ever had a place in the mind of our Commander-in-Chief, 
or in that of any of his immediate advisers in our national 
capital. Hence, all things occurred in exact accordance 
with the predictions contained in the communication under 
consideration. By not a single regiment was our army 
under Hooker, and then under Meade, reinforced by men 
called in from any of the departments around, 2,100 from 
the middle department excepted. Not a man was moved 
out from Washington to impede the retreat of General Lee. 
Nor was any effective use made of the militia that were 
furnished. The entire burden, as we stated it would be, 
was, in fact, rolled upon the single army that fought at 
Chancellorsville, an army reduced to a little over 90,000 
men. One thing was done. General Dix, commanding at 
Fortress Monroe, was directed to make a demonstration on 
Richmond. General Keyes accordingly sent about 5,000 
men from the White House above Yorktown ; more than 
that number, for what reason nobody can conjecture, being 
reserved and kept back. This force moved out a short 
distance, sent a body of cavalry to burn a railroad bridge 
over the South Anna, which was done, and then beat a 
hasty retreat. After this grand demonstration, ''all was 
quiet" in the Peninsula and in the Confederate capital. 
It is absolutely undeniable that had General Peck with 
his corps, 14,000 strong, and all other available forces in 
the Peninsula, been brought up, Richmond, defended as 
it was but by a single brigade, might have been captured 



284 THE AMERICAN REBELLION". 

and occupied by an Union army 25,000 or 30,000 strong 
on the day on which Vicksburg was surrendered or General 
Lee was defeated at Gettysburg. In this case, also, the 
destruction of the Confederate army in Pennsylvania would 
have been insured, all excuse being taken away for not 
employing our whole force at Washington for this end. 
"Blindness in full always happened" to our military 
authorities whenever such decisive opportunities presented 
themselves. 

The Campaign. 

We will now consider the campaign as actually con- 
ducted by the only army that was allowed to move against 
the invaders. On the 26th June, General Hooker, as we 
have stated, crossed the Potomac, and advanced to Frede- 
rick. On the march he visited Maryland Heights, and 
found General French there with an effective force of 
1 1 ,000 men. He accordingly requested of General Halleck 
that this force should be placed at his (Hooker's) disposal. 
This request was, June 27th, half-past 10 a.m., positively 
refused; whereupon General Hooker requested to be relieved 
from his command. He was relieved accordingly, and, less 
than one week before the commencement of the great battle 
then pending, the command was transferred, June 28th, to 
Major-General G. Meade. What the historian will find 
himself utterly unable to account for, but for the basest of 
reasons, is the fact that the order transferring the com- 
mand to General Meade placed him in full control of the 
11,000 men who, less than twenty-four hours previous, had 
been, for reasons affirmed to be permanent and funda- 
mental, denied to General Hooker. The refusal of this 
force to one and granting it to another, under the circum- 
stances, the transferrence of command from a General 
whom the army knew, confided in, and desired to fight 
under, and who had a national reputation, to one of whom 
said army knew but little, and could not have had con- 
fidence in, and who was comparatively unknown to the 
nation, and all this when there was a daily expectation of 
a great battle on which the destiny of the nation depended 
so much, are " facts stranger than fiction." 

On assuming command, General Meade committed two 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 285 

fundamental errors, and would, as we shall see, have com- 
mitted a third but for the most earnest remonstrance of 
General Pleasanton. Having withdrawn the ii,ooo men 
under General French from Maryland Heights, he brought 
them up to Frederick, and "left," in the words of Mr. 
Greeley, " 7,000 of them standing idle there, sending the 
residue as train guards to Washington, and actually apolo- 
gised to General Halleck, on meeting him, for having 
moved them at all." Of the militi'a force furnished him, 
a force of which from 30,000 to 40,000 might have been 
made effective, he refused to make any use at all. As 
soon as he assumed command, he also issued an order to 
General Pleasanton to go off with the main body of his 
cavalry on a raiding expedition, just as Stoneman had 
been sent off by General Hooker. Against this order 
General Pleasanton most earnestly protested, and finally 
refused obedience to it, unless, what he had a right to 
require, he was furnished with written directions in respect 
to where he was to go, and what he was required to do. 
To these expostulations and reasonings General Meade 
finally yielded ; and thus, as will appear, the defeat of our 
army was prevented, and its victory consequently secured 
at Gettysburg. Suppose, now, that the 11,000 men under 
General French, and 30,000 of the militia under General 
Couch, had been brought up, as all might have been, to 
the vital point, prior to the battle, a skilful commander 
would have made such use of them during the battle as 
to have secured a decisive victory without the fearful loss 
which our army did suffer on that occasion. Nor would 
our army, at the close of the battle, even in the judgment 
of General Meade, have been so exhausted as to have 
prevented its being precipitated upon the Confederates 
after their defeat, and insured their utter disorganization. 
But suppose that this force, upwards of 40,000 strong in 
all, had been held as a reserve, and not employed at all 
during the battle. At its close, and when our victory was 
insured, with this force, our cavalry, quite 12,000 strong, 
and our other reserves which had not been engaged, and 
such portions of the army as were not in a greatly ex- 
hausted condition, might have been united, and upwards 
of 60,000 men might have been precipitated upon General 



286 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Lee's exhausted and disordered columns, their ammuni- 
tion also being- nearly expended, and insured the capture 
or utter dispersion and demoralization of his army. As it 
was, when the victory was gained — and it was barely gained 
— our army was deemed to be in too exhausted a condition 
to reap the proper fruits of this advantage. So much for 
incapacity in war. 

That we may understand the facts pertaining to the 
great national battle in respect to which we are about to 
speak, we need to recur here to the use which General 
Pleasanton did make of his cavalry. Having, at Frederick, 
perfected the organization of his command, and appointed 
over his brigades and divisions such Generals as he could 
depend upon, he first of all enquired the whereabouts of 
General Stuart and his cavalry, and promptly determined 
on movements which would defeat the plans of his skilful 
antagonist. After General Lee had entered Pennsylvania, 
he, very unwisely, as he afterwards admitted, detached 
General Stuart with the mass of the Confederate cavalry on 
a raiding expedition. Stuart passed between our army and 
Washington, and having collected an immense amount of 
plunder, and captured a large number of negroes, was 
moving with his long train of waggons, etc., around east of 
our army, with the intent of joining General Lee at or near 
Gettysburg. General Pleasanton, anticipating this plan, 
and for the specific purpose of defeating it, sent Generals 
Custer and Kilpatrick with a large body of cavalry, directly 
east or nearly so, from Frederick to Hanover, Pennsylvania; 
this latter place being on the line of Stuart's detour. Gene- 
ral Kilpatrick, who was in advance, entered Hanover before 
General Stuart did, and was assaulted there ; General 
Farnsworth's brigade losing loo men. When General 
Custer came up, however, Stuart was driven off, losing 
about lOO of his waggons and much of his plunder. This 
rebuff necessitated the Confederate leader to move still 
farther east, and make a far wider detour than he had in- 
tended, a detour round near Harrisburg and by Carlisle. 
On this account Stuart did not join General Lee until the 
three days' fight was too far advanced for the former to be 
of much use to the latter in the battle. By this one move- 
ment of General Pleasanton, General Lee was, in fact, 



GENERAL I.EE A SECOXD TIME OX FREE SOIL. 287 

deprived of the essential aid of the main portion of his 
cavalry in that battle, while ours was there, and did, as 
we shall see, most essential service in it. Mr. Greeley 
tells us that our cavalry were " considerably astonished " 
at meeting- General Stuart at Hanover. We have the 
highest authority for affirming that Generals Custer and 
Kilpatrick were sent to that point for no other purpose 
than encountering- General Stuart as they did there. 

Nor was this all that was done by our cavalry. Another 
body moved out, and struck and repulsed another column 
at Littlestown. Another division moved directly to Gettys- 
burg, and there held back, as we shall see, the advance of 
the enemy to occupy the place until our advance came up, 
and prevented that catastrophe. In all these movements, 
which were most wisely ordered, and efficiently executed, 
our entire cavalry force was constantly kept within calling 
distance of the main army, and were, hence, present, and 
did, as we will show, fundamental service in the great 
battle. 

While General Hooker remained in command, he 
manoeuvred in the direction and with the intent of taking 
General Lee's communications, and thus compelling him 
to fight at a disadvantage, and on a field which our com- 
mander should select. This was, unquestionably, the plan 
demanded by the highest wisdom. As soon as General 
Meade assumed command he changed the plan of his pre- 
decessor, moving several of his corps to the north-east, 
with the intent to head off General Lee, and driving him 
back to Virginia, on the one hand, and, on the other, ot 
fighting the expected battle on the line of Pipe Creek, about 
fifteen miles south-east of Gettysburg. Unexpected events, 
however, brought on the encounter earlier than was antici- 
pated, and rendered the latter place the scene of one of 
the greatest and most bloody battles of the whole war. 

General Lee, having for some time" traversed south- 
eastern Pennsylvania, was advancing eastward, July ist, 
with the intent, as some supposed, of crossing the 
Susquehanna river and capturing Philadelphia. As he 
was approaching Gettysburg, a rural village in Adams 
county, his advance, under General Heth of General Hill's 
corps, encountered and was driven back on its division by 



288 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

a body of General Pleasanton's cavalry, under the com- 
mand of General Buford. On approaching- the main body 
of the advanced Confederate forces, nearly 30,000 strong-, 
our cavalry was, of course, in Its turn, driven back. General 
Buford, being aware that General Reynolds, with the ist 
and nth corps, 22,000 strong, was rapidly approaching, 
made in his retreat, at every favourable point, masterly 
dispositions of his small force for the purpose of delaying- 
the advance of the enemy. At every such point he would 
station his artillery and deploy his cavalry, dismounted, 
behind stone walls, and other defences which the country 
afforded, and as the enemy approached, would open upon 
them a vigorous fire. This would induce the Confederate 
General to stop and deploy his forces in battle array. As 
soon as the attack was commenced, General Buford would 
retreat to another like position, where a similar scene 
would be enacted. Thus was the Confederate advance 
retarded for quite four hours, until General Reynolds with 
his command arrived, and opened the conflict in good 
earnest. As General Wadsworth, who led our advance, 
was deploying his division, 4,000 strong. General Rey- 
nolds, who went forward alone to reconnoitre, fell and died 
in a few moments, having been shot in the neck by a 
sharp-shooter. Half-an-hour after the death of General 
Reynolds, General Doubleday, arriving with another divi- 
sion of the I St corps, assumed command. The Con- 
federates now advanced in force, driving back Wadsworth, 
who, by suddenly whirling his right around the pursuers, 
brought off General Archer and 800 prisoners. Doubleday 
fell back to Seminary Ridge, a range of hills lying west 
and north-west of Gettysburg, and here made a determined 
stand. Here he was joined soon after by the residue of 
the I St and the whole of the nth corps under General 
Howard, who assumed command, placing his own corps 
under General Schurz. In the fight which now ensued, 
Doubleday with the ist corps occupied the ridge referred 
to; two divisions of the nth being placed on an elevated 
position to the right of Doubleday, and the third. General 
Steinwehr's, as a reserve in Gettysburg. In the early part 
of the fight, our forces, having the advantage of position, 
had matters almost altogether their own way, there being 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TTME ON FREE SOIL. 289 

also but one corps of the Confederates, that of General 
Hill, on the field. At length General Ewell arrived with 
his corps, and with overwhelming forces assailed our right, 
the Confederates on the field now outnumbering us more 
than two to one. Howard's advanced divisions, not in 
this instance to their dishonour, but by mere force of 
numbers, were a second time overwhelmed, and driven 
back in confusion by Jackson's veterans, now under Ewell. 
By the rout of the nth corps, the ist, which had thus far 
stood firm against immense odds, was obliged to fall back 
also. In their retreat to Gettysburg the two bodies became 
intermingled, and, under a heavy fire from the enemy, 
rushed tumultuously through the village, leaving their 
wounded and many prisoners in the hands of the enemy. 
The retreat of our forces was covered by General Buford 
with his cavalry, he everywhere showing so bold a front 
that the enemy, though they had still two hours of day- 
light, did not pursue their advantage beyond the village. 
On Cemetery Hill, just south of the village, and at the 
apex of our position in the great battle two days after, 
General Howard halted, and reformed his broken columns ; 
General Sickles, with the 3rd corps, having just at this 
time arrived by a forced march from Emmitsburg, and 
taken a strong position on Howard's left. The conduct 
of General Sickles entitles him to a perpetual and grateful 
remembrance on the part of his country. He, in common 
with the other corps commanders, had received orders 
when at Emmittsburg, to move to the line of Pipe Creek, 
and was preparing to move his corps in the required 
direction. At 2 p.m., when on the eve of moving in the 
opposite direction, he received a despatch from General 
Howard saying that the ist and rith corps were at 
Gettysburg, and there in danger of being overwhelmed by 
superior forces. Meade was ten miles away, and to wait 
for counter orders from him would expose two corps of 
our army to almost certain destruction. Without hesita- 
tion our brave General promptly moved his corps for the 
point of danger, and arrived in time to prevent the catas- 
trophe that was feared Our loss on this day, in killed, 
wounded, and missing, was indeed fearful. Of the 4,000 
v/hom General Wadsworth led into the field in the mornmg, 

19 



290 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

he brought but about 1,600 back. Other divisions suffered 
very severely, but not so badly as this. On this day, the 
nth corps and its brave commander fully regained the 
credit which they had lost at Chancellorsville. 

During the afternoon of this day, and the night follow- 
ing, all our army, Sedgwick's corps, which was quite thirty 
miles away, excepted, was concentrated at Gettysburg, the 
corps referred to arriving by a forced march at 2 p.m. July 
2nd. That the reader may form some apprehensions of 
the character of the successive conflicts which occurred on 
July 2nd and 3rd, the following description of the field 
may be deemed expedient. Gettysburg, as has been 
stated, lies on the northern slope of a hill, which rises just 
south of the village to an apex called Cemetery Hill. 
From this point branches off two ridges, one to the east, 
and the other to the south-east ; the latter, which is much 
the longer, from two to three miles in extent, terminating 
in a rise called Round Top, and the former in one called 
Gulp Hill. Through a valley to the east of the village 
and the ridges referred to, runs a stream called Rock 
Creek. Beyond this creek, to the south-east of the village, 
and north-east of Gulp Hill, is a ridge called Senner's Hill, 
a ridge running parallel with the creek. Still farther 
south is another rise named Wolf Hill. North of the 
village is a rise called College Hill. Through a valley 
west of the village and Cemetery Hill, a valley which 
finally winds around between the village and College Hill, 
flows Stevens's Run, which enters Rock Creek to the 
north-east of the village. West of the valley through 
which Stevens's Run flows rises Seminary Ridge, which 
commences at the north-v;est of the village and terminates 
some distance to the north-west of Round Top. Near 
Cemetery Hill branches, off another ridge running more 
to the west of south, and uniting with Seminary Ridge. 
Between the ridge last described and Cemetery Hill and 
Round Top is a valley through which passes the Emmitts- 
burg road and a small stream called Plum Run, flowing 
to the south. About six miles south, on the Baltimore 
railroad, was the general depot of our army. The 
following was the disposition of our army, as perfected 
July 2rd and 3rd. Howard occupied Cemetery Hill. 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 2gi 

On his right was General Slocum with the 12th corps, 
occupying Gulp Hill, with one division east of Duck Creek, 
and south of Wolf Hill. On Howard's left the other 
corps were distributed in order, General Sickles occupying 
the centre, and General Sedgwick Round Top on our 
extreme left. General Hancock commanded on General 
Howard's immediate left, General Sickles next, and 
General Sedgwick last. The cavalry corps under General 
Pleasanton was divided into three divisions, commanded 
respectively by Generals Custer, Kilpatrick, and Buford. 
After the close of the first day. General Pleasanton with- 
drew Buford' s division and placed it as a guard at the 
depot referred to, and brought his two fresh divisions to 
the field. It being well known that one essential part of 
General Lee's plan was to flank our army on its right or 
left, and seize our depot of supplies, and that the valley 
and roads east of Senner's and Wolf Hills were most 
favourable to such a movement, General Pleasanton lo- 
cated Custer's and a portion of Kilpatrick' s divisions in 
this most exposed position ; while the latter with the re- 
mainder of his division was placed on our left, in the valley 
between the Emmitsburg road and Plum Run. 

The Confederate line was thus constituted. Their 
right, consisting of Hill's and Longstreet's corps, occupied 
Seminary Ridge ; the former on the extreme right, and the 
latter in the more central position. A portion of Hill's 
corps extended across Emmitsburg road. Ewell, on the 
left, stood opposed to Slocum, while several divisions were 
stationed in Gettysburg, directly opposite to Howard. 

A careful survey of the field occupied by these two 
armies will convince any reflecting mind that ground 
better adapted to fight a successful battle could hardly 
have been selected than is that occupied by our army on 
this occasion. Nor can we well conceive a better disposi- 
tion of forces than was that made by General Meade on 
this field. The position itself, and the arrangement of the 
forces, afforded the greatest facilities for the best possible 
use of the reserves, for perfect unity of action of all the 
parts of the army, and the ready transferrence of adequate 
forces to any point where our line might be too hardly 
pressed. In case of defeat, however, it was one of the 



292 THE AMKRICAN REBELTJON. 

worst positions conceivable, a position on which a defeated 
army could hardly avoid being pressed into a mingled 
mass, and becoming utterly demoralized. The Confede- 
rate position, on the other hand, while far less favourable 
than ours for fighting a successful battle, was far more 
favourable for a successful retreat in case of defeat. 

In the early part of July 2nd, Sickles advanced his 
command from the ridge on which it, in common with 
those of Hancock and Sedgwick, had been located, to the 
interior ridge above described. This advance was made 
without orders, and was censured by General Meade 
when he came upon the ground. There was no remedy- 
ing the mistake, however, because the battle had already 
been opened by the fire of General Lee's batteries, hardly 
half a mile distant, on Seminary Ridge, and the advance 
of Longstreet's columns, which assailed ours under Sickles 
in front and on both flanks, the enemy making desperate 
efforts also to reach and occupy Round Top. The result 
was, of course, to our no small disadvantage. Sickles's 
corps was driven back in confusion to the place it at first 
occupied, and Round Top was saved but by the most 
desperate fighting. At length Hancock closed in from 
Sickles's right, and parts of the ist, 6th, and 12th corps as- 
sailed the enemy in front. These combined assaults were 
successful, the Confederates in their turn being driven 
back with great slaughter. On the withdrawment of a 
division from Slocum, the remainder of his corps was as- 
sailed by Ewell with superior forces, and some portion of 
his rifle-pits were taken. The right of Howard was also 
assaulted, and the right face of Cemetery Hill was oc- 
cupied by the enemy. No decisive advantage, however, 
was gained by the Confederates in this part of the field. 
General Custer also had very severe fighting in his position 
to the east of Duck Creek, the enemy attempting by a 
flank movement to get possession of our supplies. Here 
the Confederates were at length driven back with such loss 
that they ceased from all furthur attempts in this direction. 
At the close of this day, July 2nd, our army stood, in 
order of battle, in the exact positions originally intended 
by General Meade. On the part of the Confederates, 
Longstreet occupied the ridge from which Sickles had been 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 293 

driven, and Ewell was in advance of the position he occu- 
pied in the morning, considerably nearer our rig-ht. Thus 
far, the advantage was, as all admit, on the side of the 
Confederates, our losses having been much greater than 
theirs. Still, the advantage of position, and the greater 
facility for unity of action, and, as the facts of this day 
demonstrated, the ready employment of the different parts 
of the army for the support and relief of each other when 
any one part was too hardly pressed, was most obviously on 
our side, and far more than over-balanced the advantages 
gained by the enemy. Being fully satisfied that all danger 
of an attempted flank movement on our right, and east of 
Duck Creek, was passed. General Pleasanton on the evening 
of this day moved the main portion of Custer's command 
over to our left, and thus greatly reinforced Kilpatrick, where 
the principal peril in the great battle to be fought the next 
day obviously lay. The collection of so large a force on 
his right, a force the character of which General Lee could 
not, in the wooded state of the country there, distinguish, 
and the bold demonstrations which this large body made, 
with its artillery especially, induced him to mfer that General 
Meade had massed a very large force there for the purpose 
of a great and decisive flank movement round the right 
wing of the Confederate army. To prevent such a catas- 
trophe. General Lee, as he stated in his report of the 
battle, kept in reserve and held back from the main con- 
flict a large reserve force, a force believed to be about 
10,000 strong. The keeping back of this reserve relieved 
our weakened line from a pressure which would, very pro- 
bably, have been too strong for it. Thus it becomes un- 
deniably evident that one of the chief causes of our final 
victory at Gettysburg was the action of our cavalry there, 
during each of the three days in which the battle continued. 
During the battle this day General Sickles had a leg 
shattered by a cannon ball, and was thus disabled for 
further service in this campaign. It has been asserted by 
some, that the real object of General Sickles in the unfor- 
tunate advance which occasioned the conflict and our re 
verses on this day was to prevent the retreat of our army 
from, and to ensure the final battle on, this field ; the retreat 
which was undeniably contemplated, if not determined on, 



294 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

by General Meade. Whatever the facts of the case may 
be, that advance did necessitate the fighting of the final 
battle on this field, it being obviously too late for a retreat, 
after the conflict on this day had commenced. In his 
report, General Lee thus speaks of the results of this day's 
battle: — "After a severe struggle, Longstreet succeeded 
in getting possession of and holding the desired ground " 
(the ground to which Sickles advanced, and from which he 
was driven). " Ewell also carried some of the strong 
positions which he assailed ; and the result was such as to 
lead to the belief that he would ultimately be able to dis- 
lodge the enemy. The battle ceased at dark. These partial 
successes determined me to continue the assault next 
day." 

On the next day, July 3rd, Slocum, having received 
back his division from our left, opened the battle by a for- 
ward movement to recover his lost rifle-pits After a sharp 
conflict, this end was attained, and our line on this part of 
the field was restored to its original position. In the early 
part of the day General Lee reinforced Longstreet with one 
division from Eweil, three brigades under Pickett, who on 
the day before arrived from Chambersburg, and two others 
from Hill's corps. Thus the day wore on, each commander 
being busily employed in stationing his batteries and 
organizing his infantry for the final issue. 

At I p.m. 115 guns from. Hill's and Longstreet's 
front, and as many more from the batteries on Seminary 
Heights, Senner's Hill, and other localities, opened upon 
our position, the centre of which was Cemetery Hill. 
Our guns were fewer in number than those of the enemy, 
but replied with terrible eflect upon their exposed positions. 
For about two hours this dreadful fire continued. At 
length the firing on our part nearly ceased, orders having 
been given to cease firing and cool the guns. During this 
period our infantry concealed themselves as best they 
could behind projections and in the hollows, awaiting 
I there the expected advance of the columns of the Con- 
federates. Nor did they wait long, after the fire of our 
guns had ceased. From behind their batteries, their lines, 
from two to three miles in length, emerged into view, and 
moved, directly, fearlessly, and confidently, upon the bat- 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 2g5 

teries and serled the ranks in their front ; their right 
extending near to Round Top, and their left to Cemetery 
Hill. As these ranks, mostly in three lines, passed the 
Confederate batteries, and were well in the fight, their guns 
ceased firing, while quite fifty of ours ploughed through 
those columns with a terrible fire of shell, grape, and 
canister. As General Pickett with his division leading 
the columns of the enemy, the large division of Pettigrew 
on his left, reached the Emmitsburg Road, they encoun- 
tered a heavy fire from a line of our skirmishers stationed 
behind a stonewall. This impediment was soon overcome, 
but not without great loss, our 'men holding their ground 
with great tenacity, retreating slowly, and keeping up a 
deadly fire upon the advancing foe. When the enemy 
reached the Emmitsburg Road, they opened a withering 
fire upon our forces, those of Hancock especially, in their 
front. Soon our guns were silenced, and on moved 
Pickett's splendid division, with the best of Hill's corps 
in support, upon our infantry. Hancock having been 
wounded. Gibbon commanded now in this part of the field. 
The brave Gibbon walked along our line, requiring his men 
to reserve their fire until the Confederates, three lines deep, 
should approach within point-blank range. "At last," to 
adopt the language of one of our most distinguished cor- 
respondents. Agate, as cited by Mr. Greeley, "the order 
came. From thrice three thousand guns, there came a 
sheet of smoky flame, a crash, a rush of molten death. 
The line literally melted away ; but there came the second, 
resistless still. It had been our supreme effort — on the 
instant, we were not equal to another. Up to the rifle- 
pits, across them, over the barricades — the momehtum 
of their charge, the mere machine strength of their com- 
bined action — swept them on. Our thin line could fight, 
but it had not weight enough to oppose to this momen- 
tum. It was pushed behind the guns. Right on came 
the Rebels. They were upon the guns — were bayoneting 
the gunners — were waving their flags above our pieces. But 
they had penetrated to the fatal point. A storm of grape 
and canister tore its way from man to man, and marked 
its track with corpses straight down their line ! They 
^had exposed themselves to the enfilading guns on the 



2gb THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

western slope of Cemetery Hill : that exposure sealed their 
fate. 

" Pettigrew's large division, on the left, was the first 
to recoil under this dreadful fire. In a short time the 
whole body broke, and fled in confusion in the direction 
of the rear of that of Pickett. Strong bodies of our 
infantry in rapid pursuit begin to close round the ranks 
of the enemy, who are holding possession of our batteries. 
Their whole lines consequently retire, with ours in pursuit. 
A whole regiment of infantry at once laid down its arms, 
and passed within our lines ; all along our front, — smaller 
bodies surrendered in a similar manner. " Webb's 
brigade," said Agate, "took 800; taken in as little 
time as it takes to write the simple sentence that tells 
it. Gibbon's old division took fifteen stand of colours." 
With this decisive repulse the battle was over, as no hope 
remained to the Confederates of reaping victory by any- 
thing that could have been done on any other part of the 
field. As a matter of fact. General Lee had deliberately 
staked the issue of the day upon this one movement, and, 
to render its success certain, had drawn so heavily upon 
all other of his army corps as to render them powerless 
for decisive action. 

After this repulse of General Lee's main forces, almost 
all fighting ceased at once, our army resting upon their 
arms, and the Confederates falling back and preparing for 
their final retreat. From Round Top a single brigade, 
under General Candless, did advance for one mile over 
the ground which had been occupied by General Hill, 
drove off an unsupported battery, captured 260 prisoners, 
and recovered all our wounded, who, up to that time, since 
Sickles's repulse, had lain upon the field uncared for. 
This slight advance made manifest the fact that this wing 
was left almost totally defenceless, the main portion of 
Hill's corps having been withdrawn to support the main 
attack. The remainder of this day, and all the night, 
General Lee lay undisturbed in the presence of our army, 
and then, as morning dawned, moved off, " a sadder and a 
wiser man," in the direction of "the sacred soil," from 
which he had made such an imposing advance. Our 
army, with the exception of sending at length a portion 



SENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 297 

of cavalry in pursuit of the retreating- foe, remained four 
or five days stationary upon the bloody field which it had 
so bravely and so dearly won. 

In this battle of three days our loss, as officially re- 
ported by General Meade, amounted to 23,186 killed, 
wounded, and missing; the latter being 6,643, who were 
mostly lost on the first day of the conflict. He reports 
also three guns, forty-one flags, and 13,621 prisoners, a 
majority of them wounded, captured from the enemy. If 
we suppose the Confederate loss in killed and wounded to 
be equal to ours, which is a very safe reckoning, then their 
loss amounted to quite 23,000 men. This invasion un- 
deniably cost the Confederates little if any less than one- 
third of all the forces which they had in Virginia and the 
Carolinas ; and, with the loss of quite 40,000 men at Vicks- 
burg and Port Hudson, rendered the final collapse of the 
Rebellion only a question of time. 

As we have intimated, the plan of the battle on the 
part of our commander was faultless, the nature of the 
ground occupied by our army almost necessitating such a 
plan. The plan of the Confederate commander, we are 
constrained to say, was fundamentally defective, and in- 
sured his defeat. The issue of the conflict was, by him, 
staked upon the results of a smgle attack made by infantry 
moving upon a line of from two to three miles in extent ; 
infantry who, in their advance, were first subject to the 
direct fire of all our batteries in front of their extended 
line, had then to receive the deliberate fire of our 
whole line of infantry, and finally, when they had forced 
their way into our line, were subject, in addition to the 
continual fire of our infantry, to be swept off by the 
enfilading fire of batteries most favourably located for 
such purposes. Under such circumstances, a line of battle 
of the extent of that under consideration could not fail to 
be broken somewhere; while such a catastrophe would 
ensure the defeat of the whole attack, and the consequent 
loss of the battle. In no battles under the conduct of 
great commanders of other nations can we find any prece- 
dents to justify the plan of attack adopted by General Lee 
on this occasion. 

Great commanders are not more distinguished for 



298 , THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

winning battles than for improving victories when 
gained. Tried by this last test, our commander undeni- 
ably ranks quite low in the scale of generalship. What 
was the state of the two armies at the crisis when the 
defeat of the Confederate line became manifest, to wit, at 
5 p.m. on this memorable day ? It must be borne in 
mind that none of our soldiery, artillerists excepted, were 
in a wearied condition, none of our infantry having been 
engaged much, if any, over two hours. While no part of 
our line had been broken at all, the entire left of that of 
the Confederates was utterly routed and disordered. On 
our left were two corps, the 5th and 6th, the latter of 
which had hardly fired a gun during the day, while the 
former had done very little fighting at all ; and these corps 
were not confronted by any force which would in the 
least have retarded their advance. The validity of these 
statements is fully verified by the fact that, as we have 
stated, a single brigade under General McCandless passed, 
as ordered, along the entire front of these corps, and was 
confronted by no forces which seriously impeded its ad- 
vance. The mass of General Lee's retreating army was in 
the immediate front of our centre, with their wings thus 
open and exposed. Suppose now that, while our centre 
had been precipitated upon the retreating foe, our 
right and left had been as promptly closed up around the 
exposed wings of the enemy's line ; our cavalry in the 
meantime, after the example of Wellington at Waterloo, 
being thrown between the defeated mass and the reserves 
behind. Not a shadow of doubt can for a moment rest 
upon the results of such a combination of our forces. The 
main body of Lee's army must inevitably have been 
rolled up into a mingled mass, and utterly demoralized, if 
not captured ; the capture of the largest portion being 
certain. What remained would have been pushed off into 
the country, away from their only lines of retreat — pushed 
off into the country, destitute of provisions, where their 
final capture would be only a question of time. Another 
equally inevitable result would have been the capture of 
the main portion of Lee's guns, then located on the inner 
ridge from which the infantry advance was made. Finally, 
by a proper use of the army on the field, of the militia at 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 299 

command, of our forces at Frederick, Washington, and 
in the Peninsula and elsewhere, all the remainder of 
the Confederate army might have been captured, and the 
war in fact ended, before that army could have marched 
150 miles from that battle-field. It was in view of such 
results — results so palpably manifest — that General Plea- 
santon, standing by the side of General Meade at Round 
Top, at the time when the defeat of the enemy became 
manifest, urged our commander to precipitate at once 
his whole army upon the retreating foe, saying to him 
at the same time, — " Now is your time, General Meade, 
not only to gain the greatest victory of the war, but to 
assure for yourself a place in history among the great 
Generals of the age." "The Lord, however, kept back 
our General from honour." Feeble commanders are 
always paralyzed by the spectacle of victory, and as a 
consequence never improve the advantage gained. 

What was done by the commander of our victorious 
army, after his victory was insured, reminds us of the 
utterance of a celebrated prize-fighter, as he, yet in the 
full vigour of his strength, saw his bleeding and fainting 
antagonist reeling up to the scratch. Turning to the 
seconds of the poor creature, the strong man exclaimed : 
" Take your man away, I don't want to mall him any 
more." So our commander practically said to General 
Lee : " Do take your fainting, bleeding army off from this 
field. ' Must the sword devour for ever ? Will it not be 
bitter in the latter end ? ' ' All my mother comes into my 
eyes, and gives me up to tears,' at the thought of inflicting 
upon your weakened and discomfited forces another blow." 
In the same spirit, and that by word of command, was the 
entire pursuit of the retreating army conducted, as far as 
our infantry were concerned. Never did soldiery act 
more bravely than did ours during that battle of three 
days' continuance, and never were soldiery more eager to 
be permitted to render their victory a crushing defeat, 
than were ours when their final success became manifest. 
Masses of troops rushed up to the commander of our 
central corps, and begged the privilege of being per- 
[ mitted to pursue the retreating foe. By absolute word of 
command, however, our brave army was held back, and 



300 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the enemy was permitted a quiet retirement to their can- 
tonments, there to determine, at their leisure, upon a sub- 
sequent renewal of the conflict, or a final retreat. 

During the entire day after the battle, our army re- 
mained in position, General Meade wishing- to know with 
certainty whether the enemy intended to retreat or not. 
This he did, notwithstanding he was absolutely assured, 
at 8 a.m., and at later periods, by cavalry reconnoissances 
which General Pleasanton sent out, that, on all the roads 
leading from the battle field, the enemy was in full retreat, 
destitute of ammunition, and in a very demoralized con- 
dition. General Gregg, for example, made such report, 
at the time designated, after he had moved out from our 
right twenty-two miles on the Chambersburg road. He 
found the road, as he reported, strewn with wounded men, 
stragglers, ambulances and caissons, and had captured a 
large number of prisoners. General Birney, who had suc- 
ceeded General Sickles' in command of the 3rd corps, thus 
reports: — "I was ordered to send out a reconnoissance 
at daybreak (on the 4th) to ascertain the position of the 
enemy. I did so early on Sunday morning, and reported 
that the enemy was in full retreat. I also sent back for 
permission to open upon the enemy with my rifled batteries 
as they were crossing a point very near me, upon the 
turnpike going towards Hagerstown ; and the staff officer 
brought me permission to do so. I had commenced the 
movement to attack, when another staff officer arrived 
from General Meade, with a written order from him to 
make no attack, which was done. My skirmishers ad- 
vanced and took possession of their hospitals, with a large 
number of their wounded. I had sent some twenty 
orderlies with a staff officer, who led the reconnoissance ; 
and I reported these facts constantly to General Meade ; 
but this peremptory order from him not to open fire at all 
prevented any pursuit of the enemy." On the morning of 
the 5th, when the retreat of the Confederates could no 
longer be doubted, General Pleasanton, with his cavalry, 
was sent on one road, and General Sedgwick, with the 
6th corps, on another, in pursuit of the enemy. The 
cavalry of course, under such a commander as Pleasan- 
ton, acted with full vigour, harassing the enemy on their 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 30I 

rear and flank, capturing- many prisoners, and many 
waggons, and everywhere finding- demonstrative evidence 
of two fundamental facts — the demoralized condition of 
General Lee's army, and the exhaustion of its ammuni- 
tion ; facts which, in due order, were reported to General 
Meade. 

The followmg statement of General A. P. Howe, who 
commanded a division under General Sedgwick — a state- 
ment made before the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War — will fully indicate the manner of the pursuit under 
the commander of the 6th corps. " On the 4th of July, it 
seemed evident enough that the enemy was retreating. 
How far they were gone we could not see from the front : 
we could see but a comparatively small force from the 
position where I was. On Sunday, the 5th and 6th corps 
moved in pursuit. As we moved, a small rear-guard of 
the enemy retreated. We followed them, with this small 
rear-guard of the enemy before us, up to Fairfield, in a 
gorge of the mountains. Here we again waited for them 
to go on. There seemed to be no disposition to push this 
rear-guard when we got to Fairfield. A lieutenant from the 
enemy came into our lines and gave himself up. He was 
a Northern Union man, in service in one of the Georgia 
regiments. Without being asked, he unhesitatingly in- 
formed me, when I met him as he was being brought in, 
that he belonged to the artillery of the rear-guard of the 
enemy, and that they had but two rounds of ammunition 
with the rear-guard. But we waited there without re- 
ceiving any orders to attack. It was a place where, as I 
informed General Sedgwick, we could easily attack the 
enemy with advantage. But no movement was made by 
us until the enemy was away. Here one brigade of my 
division, with some cavalry, was sent to follow on after 
them, while the remainder of the 6th corps moved to the 
left. We moved on through Boonsboro', and passed up 
on the pike road leading to Hagerstown. After passing 
Boonsboro', it became my turn to lead the 6th corps. 
That day, just before we started, General Sedgwick 
ordered me to move on and take up the best position I 
could over a little stream on the Frederick side of Funks- 
town. As I moved on, it was suggested to me by him to 



302 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

move carefully. ' Don't come In contact with the enemy; 
we don't want to bring on a general engagement.' It 
seemed to be the current impression that it was not 
desired to bring on a general engagement." In this 
manner the whole pursuit was conducted. One crowning 
wish evidently held full possession of the mind of our 
General in command and of his subordinates, as far as 
they sympathised with him, namely, to get the invaders as 
quietly as possible back upon the "sacred soil of Virginia." 
After he had sent a small portion of his army in pur- 
suit of the retreating foe, General Meade remained some 
two or three days longer where he was, employing his time 
in bur\ing our dead, caring for the wounded, and refurn- 
ishing his forces for the campaign before them. We need 
not detail the movements of the two armies up to July 
1 2th, when they were brought again face to face, at 
Williamsport on the Potomac. To this point, General 
Lee had conducted his discomfited army, and was detained 
there four days before our army, in its varied wanderings, 
through miscalculation, and want of energy in its com- 
mander, arrived, and compelled the enemy to face about 
to the north once more. The cause of the delay referred 
to was twofold. In the first place, General French, who 
had been left behind with his corps at Frederick, had, with- 
out orders, sent a body of cavalry to Falling Waters and 
Williamsport, and had thus, after capturing the weak guard 
which General Lee had left at those points, destroyed the 
bridges over which he had passed his army on his advance 
into Pennsylvania, all his means of recrossing the river 
being thus cut off. Then, the excessive rains which had 
fallen had so swollen the river as to render fording, or 
restoring the bridges, until after this delay, impossible. 
When our army, reinforced by General French's corps and 
a large body of militia, arrived at last in front of that of 
General Lee, he was found in a position which, in expecta- 
tion of being able to cross the river before the arrival 
of General Meade, the Confederate commander had neg- 
lected to fortify in any important particulars, and where a 
defeat would have absolutely insured the capture of the 
entire invading army. Another important fact, in respect 
to the condition of the Confederate army, had become more 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 303 

and more evident, that it was so short of ammunition as to 
be utterly unable to fight another important battle. From 
long" and careful observations, General Pleasanton affirms 
that he had become able, as he listened to the early fire of 
the enemy, to judge unerringly whether they were well 
supplied with or short of ammunition, and that all the 
firing from the Confederates which he heard during their 
retreat, and especially as he approached their position on 
the Potomac, rendered it perfectly evident to his mind that 
their ammunition was short, and that, after fighting a short 
time, they would be compelled to surrender. The most 
important of all considerations were these : while defeat on 
the part of the Confederates rendered their entire surrender 
an absolute necessity, a safe retreat was open to our army, 
should our attack fail of success. Nothing but chicken - 
heartedness, and blindness to the most palpable and 
weighty facts, would deter a commander from fighting a 
battle under such circumstances. 

Having, at the close of July 12th, got his army into 
position. General Meade called together his corps com- 
manders, and to them submitted the question whether the 
final battle of the war should then and there be fought, or 
not. After a full discussion of the reasons for and against 
the measure, three — Generals Howard, Pleasanton, and 
Wadsworth, successor of General Reynolds — voted for, 
and five — Generals Sedgwick, Slocum, Sykes, French, and 
Hays, in place of General Hancock, wounded at Gettys- 
burg — voted against fighting a battle. General Meade, 
after hearing all parties, agreed in judgment with the 
minority, but deferred to that of the majority, and our 
great army stood sublimely and bravely still, and per- 
mitted General Lee, at his leisure, and without molesta- 
tion, to finish his bridges, and pass his army over the 
river, leaving, as he states, two stalled guns, some broken- 
down waggons, and some few weary stragglers to the 
keeping of the standstillers. On our side, it is affirmed, 
thanks to our cavalry, whose brave commanders every- 
where permitted and required their brave men to do their 
duty. General Kilpatrick, on our left, having learned at 
3 a.m. that the pickets in his front were retiring, gave 
chase, and after severe fighting captured upwards of 



304 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

1,500 prisoners. In this fight Major Webber lost his life 
while leading- the 6th Michigan in a desperate and open 
charge over the enemy's earthworks. 

Thus ended this memorable invasion. That General 
Lee was permitted, with such a force as he commanded, 
and in the presence of forces which might as well as not 
have been brought against him, — forces outnumbering his 
as two to one, — that he should have been permitted to 
advance to such an immense distance from his own centre 
and into our territory, to suffer such a defeat as he did, 
and then to return unmolested to the point from which he 
started, losing, in all the campaign and its battles, but 
three guns, two of these voluntarily relinquished as stalled 
ones, and so few of his trains, is a mystery which nothing 
but the most unaccountable imbecility and irresolution 
and inertion in our military authorities in Washington, 
and in our commander in the field, can account for. No 
battle ever did more honour to the soldiery in both armies 
than did that of Gettysburg. No campaign stands more 
to the dishonour of the military authorities who planned 
and executed it, than does that of which this famous battle 
constituted a part. 

The victory at Gettysburg, and the fall of Vicksburg 
and Port Hudson, following one another in such quick 
succession, of course electrified the entire Northern States, 
and changed the deep general despondency into universal 
"assurance of hope," The writer of this treatise is, very 
probably, about the only individual in the United States 
who ardently desired the triumph, and early triumph, of 
the Union cause, who did not share in the general joy. 
No individual rejoiced more than we did in the advan- 
tages gained. We were saddened in view of coming 
events which we clearly foresaw, and others did not 
apprehend, namely, the real suspension of hostilities until 
the opening of the campaigns in the spring of the next 
year. We understood the character of our ruling military 
authorities, and knew well, and so affirmed to all around 
us, and so wrote, as we have stated, for the New York 
Times, that these imposing victories would so completely 
paralyze the minds of these authorities that our vast 
armies would be left to rest in demoralizing idleness for 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 305 

nearly a year to come; when, by a proper and prompt 
use of these forces, the war mi<^ht be brouai^ht to a close in 
a very few months, and that with a far less loss of life 
than would be occasioned by disease while our armies 
were doing nothing. The detail of subsequent events will 
absolutely verify our worst apprehensions. 

On the 1 8th of July, General Meade crossed the 
Potomac at Berlin, and passing down the east side of the 
Blue Ridge, arrived on the 25th of the same month at 
Warrenton. From this time and onward, the remainder 
of summer and all the autumn ensuing were spent in 
marches and countermarches, in which Meade would 
advance, and then run as soon as Lee would look our 
brave commander in the face. At last, the two armies went 
into winter quarters; the Confederate at Hanover, and ours 
at Culpepper Court House, the latter located south of the 
Rappahannock, and about twenty miles north of General 
Lee's head-quarters. The utter contempt with which General 
Lee regarded his antagonist is manifest in this strange fact, 
that while the two armies were confronting each other, the 
Confederate commander, in the latter part of August or 
the early part of September, sent General Longstreet, with 
his entire corps, to Georgia, to aid General Bragg against 
General Rosecrans. Thus the entire Confederate army for 
the defence of Richmond was, as General Meade himself 
estimated, reduced to the small force of 50,000 men. We 
must bear in mind here, that Meade's army, in addition to 
a force quite 60,000 strong in Washington, amounted at 
least to from 80,000 to 100,000 men, while another veteran 
1 force, nearly 30,000 strong, lay confronting Richmond in 
the vicinity of Fortress Monroe. Suppose now, that 
30,000 men from our vast armies in the field had been 
sent down to this latter point, and with the force already 
, there, had been landed at Bermuda Hundred, Petersburg 
I being recaptured, and all Lee's communications south of 
I James river being seized ; while the great army of Meade 
I had, at the same time, been pushed directly upon the Con- 
federate position at Hanover Court House. It is demon- 
' strably evident that in less than six weeks Richmond 
^ and Lee's army would have been in our hands. Yet 
j nothing whatever was done to take advantage of Long- 

20 



306 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Street's absence, and dispose of the puny force left with Lee 
for the defence of Virginia and the capital of the Confede- 
racy. The nation looked on, contemplating the spectacle of 
200,000 men lying idle, and that when confronted by a 
little band 50,000 strong. The cause of these mysterious 
facts, the reader, we judge, will find in the following 
testimony of General A. P. Howe, given before the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War. Speaking of the 
judgment of those officers who were dissatisfied with 
General Meade's management, General Howe says : — 

*' I do not think they have full confidence in the ability 
or state of mind of General Meade. What I mean by that 
is the animus that directs the movements of the army. 
They do not think there is that heart and energy and 
earnestness of purpose in the war to make use of the 
means at his command to injure the enemy and carry on 
the war successfully. I do not think they have, I will not 
say confidence, but faith in him. They do not expect 
from him what the crisis seems to call for. They believe 
that, if attacked, he will do all he can to defend his 
position ; but that he will act with zeal and energy, or 
that his whole heart and soul are in the bringing all the 
means successfully to bear to break down the enemy, so 
far as I can judge, they do not look for that, — they do not 
expect it. So far as I can judge, a great many officers 
think he can do very well in a defensive fight. If he were 
called upon to guard the Potomac or Washington, he 
would make good marches to stop the enemy ; but that he 
will be active, zealous, energetic, in using his means to 
strike successful offensive blows against the enemy, not at 
all ; he is not the man for that — at least, that is my im- 
pression." 

Question : ** The same observation you apply to General 
Meade will apply to the corps commanders you refer to, 
will it not?" 

Answer: ** I think so. I do not know that it would be 
proper for me to state here the terms we use in the army. 
However, we say there is too much Copperheadism in it. 
There is so for different reasons: with some there is a 
desire to raise up McClellan ; with others there is a dislike 
to some of the measures of the Government ; they do not 



GENERAL LEE A SECOND TIME ON FREE SOIL. 307 

like the way the Negro question is handled. And, again, 
the impression is made upon my mind that there are some 
who have no faith in this war, who have no heart in it ; 
they will not do anything to commit themselves ; but there 
is a wide difference between doing your duty so as not to 
commit yourself, and doing all that might reasonably be 
expected of you at these times. I do not know that I can 
express myself better than saying that there is Copper- 
headism at the root of this matter." 

Here we have a look into the secret of the conduct of this 
war. Ignorance, irresolution, Copperheadism, and the lust 
of gain on the part of generals and party leaders, so con- 
trolled our campaigns as to cause the war to drag its slow 
length along during those dreary years, and that at such an 
enormous expense of life and treasure. Here we have also 
an explanation of the fact that our vast armies lay idle at 
such long intervals of time, that none of our victories 
were improved, and that all opportunities to end the war 
by single crushing blows were let slip. We now, for the 
present, leave the army of the Potomac, to consider an 
important event in another part of this field of war. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 

From the early part of January to the last of June of this 
year, General Rosecrans had remained at Murfreesboro', 
provisioning and recruiting- his army, as preparatory to 
a decisive movement against General Bragg, who held 
Middle and Eastern Tennessee, Chattanooga being his 
main strategic point, and the consequent special aim of 
our authorities at Washington. At this time our army 
numbered about 60,000 men of all arms ; the force under 
General Bragg being about two-thirds that number. 
While our army, that of the Cumberland, was a united 
body in one place, that of Eragg was divided into four 
parts, and these at unsupporting distances from each 
other. A body, 18,000 strong, was, for example, in a very 
strongly fortified position under General [Bishop] Polk at 
Shelbyville. Behind this, and commanding a mountain 
region traversed by narrow roads and most difficult 
passes, lay another equally strongly entrenched camp, at 
Tullahoma. On the right of Shelbyville, at Wartrace, 
covering the railroad and the mountain passes in his front, 
lay General Hardee, with a corps 12,000 strong. Another 
division under General Buckner occupied Knoxville and 
Chattanooga. The difficulties in the way of General 
Rosecrajis's advance are obvious. Before him lay formid- 
ably entrenched camps, and more formidable mountain 
passes ; the enemy being thus enabled to compel him to 
fight at the greatest disadvantage, and also to impede his 
advance by breaking up railroad communications and ob- 
structing the narrow mountain passes through which that 
advance must be made. Then, in every position gained, 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 309 

he was necessitated to leave large forces behind him to 
guard his rear. Thus our forces would be all the while 
suffering diminution, while those of the enemy, in falling 
back upon his reserves, would be on the constant increase. 
Another important difficulty had thus far prevented effec- 
tively any important active operations on the part of the 
army of the Cumberland. While our infantry greatly out- 
numbered that of General Bragg, his cavalry equally out- 
numbered ours, and hence in all advances rendered our 
communications liable to be broken up. Of this General 
Rosecrans complained, and made the strongest appeals to 
the authorities at Washington, for an adequate supply of 
cavalry. To all such calls. General Halleck refused to 
respond, assigning this as the specific reason, that there 
was not forage in that region for more horses. To this 
General Rosecrans replied, and with perfect truth, that for- 
age in abundance existed, and that the want of horses was 
the only impediment to his obtaining it. Such consider- 
ations had no weight with our Commander-in-Chief. 

Under the ^circumstances with which he was palpably 
encircled. General Rosecrans protested against an advance 
upon the enemy without reinforcements, and especially 
without being supplied with an adequate force of cavalry. 
While all such aid was denied him, he received an abso- 
lute order to advance upon the enemy, and take possession 
of Chattanooga. Just at this time, a fundamental error of 
General Bragg — an error the like of which was so common 
in this war — relieved our commander of the difficulty last 
named. In the latter part of June, the celebrated raider. Gene- 
ral Morgan, with a cavalry force upwards of 2,000 strong, 
was sent past our army, and across the States of Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky. Crossing the Ohio river, some forty 
miles below Louisville, Morgan passed on through Southern 
Indiana, into Ohio, where he, with the men he had left, — 
some very few excepted, who swam their horses across the 
Ohio river — was captured in the south-western part of the 
State. By this foolish division of his cavalry force on the 
part of General Bragg, and through the most strenuous 
efforts of our commander to supply himself with horses 
and means of conveyance, General Rosecrans found him- 
self able to take the field with some hope of accomplish- 



3IO THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

ing the burdensome task so imprudently imposed upon 
him. 

State 0/ affairs in the Valley of the Mississippi. 

Let us now, prior to a consideration of the campaign 
before us, contemplate the actual situation of affairs in the 
valley of the Mississippi — the situation when the Union and 
Confederate authorities were making preparation to strike 
a great and decisive blow, through the army of General 
Bragg on the one hand, and that of General Rosecrans on 
the other. By a combination of forces on an immense 
scale, the former authorities were collecting, under General 
Bragg, by far the most formidable army which they had 
ever brought into the field in this valley. As a means to 
this end. General Longstreet, with his corps 20,000 or 
25,000 strong, was detached from General Lee, and sent 
round to General Bragg. The entire division under 
General Buckner was also brought down, leaving Knox- 
ville to be taken quiet possession of by General Burnside. 
In all places where regular troops were 'stationed they 
also were brought forward, their places being supplied by 
militia called out for the purpose. Finally, a large part of 
^,he forces captured and paroled at Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson were reconscripted, rearmed, and united with the 
grand army under the Confederate commander. By all 
these means, this army was increased to from 80,000 to 
100,000 men, all to be concentrated for the destruction of 
the army of the Cumberland. What was the state of our 
forces in this valley at this time ? An army quite 60,000 
strong was under the immediate command of General 
Rosecrans at Murfreesboro'. In the interior of Kentucky, 
upwards of 20,000 troops available for active service were 
under the command of General Burnside ; and this force, by 
the return of the 9th corps after the surrender of Vicks- 
burg (July 4th), might have been, and was soon after, ren- 
dered 50,000 strong. By a combination of our forces on 
and west of the Mississippi, after the fall of Vicksburg 
and Port Hudson, an army more than 100,000 strong 
might have been concentrated at Memphis, and by rail- 
road and other means sent inward to Georgia, to combine 
with Rosecrans and Burnside for the final destruction of 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 3II 

the grand army under General Bragg. No intelligent 
reader will question the fact that all these combinations 
were perfectly practicable at that time. When all was in 
readiness, and while General Grant was moving his army 
to the vicinity of Decatur, Burnside, 50,000 strong, should 
have moved through the mountain passes, and taken pos- 
session of Knoxville, as he did with 20,000, September 
3rd. Suppose now, that while Grant was moving as 
stated, Burnside had moved upon Chattanooga, and Rose- 
crans upon the forces in his front. The immediate result 
would have been a most rapid flight of Bragg's forces from 
Shelbyville and other points to Fayetteville, twenty-five 
miles south-east of Chattanooga; while our Generals would 
have quietly united their forces in the vicinity of the place 
last named. Thus united, and forming an army of upwards 
of 100,000 men, a perfectly crushing force might have been 
precipitated upon General Bragg prior to the arrival of 
Longstreet. Before this force the Confederate commander 
would have fled to Atlanta. At this point, even when 
reinforced by General Longstreet, he would have found 
himself confronted by two armies, each greater than his 
own — to wit, by Burnside and Rosecrans from the north, 
and Grant's from the west. 

Under such circumstances, the Confederate commander 
would have surrendered at once, or, in a few days or 
weeks at the farthest, would have been so encircled with 
resistless forces as to compel his surrender. The inevita- 
ble result would have been, that all the Confederate States 
east of the Mississippi, Virginia excepted, would have at 
once fallen into our hands. As the final result, General 
Lee, perceiving the absolute hopelessness of the cause he 
was maintaining, and the criminality of further effusion of 
blood, would have surrendered, and the Rebellion have 
been wiped out. Perceiving, and avowing at the time, the 
perfect practicability of all these combinations and results, 
and knowing well, because we fully understood the spirit 
and capacities of our military authorities, that no com- 
binations or unity of action of our great armies for the 
realization of these or any other desirable ends would be 
made, and that the single army of Rosecrans would be 
thrown into the circle of fire with which it was afterwards 



312 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

encompassed, — these were the reasons why we did not share 
in the public joy at the great victories gained at Gettys- 
burg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson. These were the 
reasons why we wrote at this time that unpublished letter 
to the New York Times, the letter in which we clearly 
stated what might be done, and as clearly and definitely 
foreshadowed the events which did follow. Never did the 
idea have place in the mind of either of our commanders- 
in-chief during this war, that the only possible condition of 
putting down the Rebellion was the annihilation of the armies 
or military power of the Confederacy, that the immutable 
condition of accomplishing this result was the combination 
and concentration of the national forces for this one end, 
and that while this end was being accomplished, territory 
and positions should be taken and held, but for strictly 
strategic purposes. The policy, on the other hand, which 
determined the entire conduct of this war on our part, 
was the principle that the only method for an effec- 
tive accomplishment of the end under consideration was 
to have in the first place as little to do as possible with 
the armies of the Confederacy, to lend all our energies in 
the next place to the one end of conquering and holding 
territory, capturing and garrisoning fortresses, villages, 
and cities, driving the enemy from any positions he might 
assume, leaving him then to go where and do as he pleased, 
until he should choose to locate again in some particular 
position, and finally, in no case to make any combined 
movements for the accomplishment of these or any other 
results, but to compel each army and each separated part 
of every army to act by itself, and that without reference 
to what any other part was doing. No comprehensive 
mind can contemplate the facts of this war, just as they 
occurred, without perceiving the strict verity of the above 
statements. After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, 
for example, nothing whatever hindered the prompt union 
of our great armies on the Mississippi with that of General 
Rosecrans for a grand movement upon General Bragg. 
Instead of this, however, all these forces lay idle, Sherman 
only being sent on a vain and senseless raid into the inte- 
rior. When Burnside, with 20,000 disciplined troops, took 
possession of Knoxville, that city and all North-Eastern 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 313 

Tennessee being intensely loyal, and in no need of being- 
guarded, Rosecrans was in the act of driving Bragg' s 
forces from Shelbyville and other places named above, and 
this as preparatory to his final move upon Chattanooga. 
At this time this place was abandoned by General Bragg, 
and all his forces between there and Knoxville were with- 
drawn to Fayetteville. Had Burnside moved down a 
distance of less than 150 miles, and taken possession of 
Chattanooga, he would have been able to have moved 
out and reinforced Rosecrans, and thus have enabled our 
combined forces to inflict a crushing defeat upon General 
Bragg at Chickamauga and driven him back to Atlanta. 
Instead of doing any such thing, Burnside, as soon as 
he got possession of Knoxville, scattered his forces all 
over North-Eastern Tennessee, where they were of no use 
for any purposes of the war. So much for the wisdom 
of our great Generals. Never could a nation (let me 
say here what I have said before) boast of a braver or 
more patriotic soldiery than ours, nor of abler Generals and 
under officers than held inferior command in these armies. 
The whole difficulty lay with those who held supreme 
command. One of the most intelligent chaplains in the 
army of the Cumberland, for example, told us, when I 
informed him of the plan which I had submitted in Janu- 
ary 1863 for the conduct of the campaign in Virginia, 
that he had often heard corps, division, and brigade com- 
manders in the army where he was, express their astonish- 
ment that that identical plan had not been adopted, that 
plan having independently suggested itself to their minds. 
Equally surprised were these men that no combinations of 
the national forces were anywhere made for the ends 
demanded by the exigencies of the war. 

The Campaign under General Rosecrans, 

Let us now direct our attention to the campaign as 
conducted by General Rosecrans. Here palpable facts 
at once reveal him as a General of no ordinary capacity. 
The plan he adopted was this. A feint was made in the 
direction of Shelbyville, which lay on our direct route — • 
a feint which induced General Bragg to concentrate his 
forces at this point. While this movement was bein f 

/ 



314 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

made, our main forces were moved by rapid marclies to 
Manchester, on the enemy's right, thus jeopardizing 
all his communications with Chattanooga and the valley 
south of that place. Finding all the forces under his 
immediate command in danger of being surrounded and 
captured, General Bragg fled precipitately, first to Tulla- 
homa, and then over the mountains to Lafayette, leaving 
all his strongholds behind him, to be taken peaceable pos- 
session of by his rival. Thus, by as skilful combinations 
as the history of war presents, Rosecrans in the short space 
of nine days succeeded, with the loss of 560 men on our 
part, in destroying quite as many of the enemy, and in 
capturing 1,634 prisoners, three guns, several very 
strongly fortified positions, a vast amount of provisions 
and other spoils, and clearing Middle Tennessee of all 
Confederate forces. Such facts clearly evince what this 
skilful commander would have done had adequate forces, 
as he requested, and which might have been done as well as 
not, — had adequate forces been put under his command. 

Just at this time, the further advance of our forces, 
and a rapid pursuit of General Bragg, were prevented by 
seventeen days of incessant rain, which rendered the roads 
in those mountain passes quite impassable. The almost 
impassable state of the roads was not the only difficulty 
which General Rosecrans had to encounter. His further 
advance was now through a mountainous region in which 
all food and forage were destroyed or devoured, and in 
which the railroad communications were broken up by 
General Bragg in his retreat. All that could be done was 
to harass that General by means of our light troops, and 
that while the railroad from Nashville to Bridgeport, 
where the road crosses the Tennessee river twenty- eight 
miles below Chattanooga, was being repaired. By July 
25th, this end was attained, and our army was in a 
condition to pass the river. By means of bridges con- 
structed above and below, and at this point, the passage 
was commenced August 28th and completed by Sep- 
tember 8th. The several corps now pushed forward 
across the mountains and concentrated at Trenton, in the 
narrow valley of Lookout Creek, which runs in a north- 
easterly direction into the Tennessee river, a few miles 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 315 

below Chattanooga. Two courses were now before our 
commander. He might pass his whole army down this 
valley to the point designated, or send a division down, 
and take possession of the place, while our main forces 
were pushed forward over Mission Ridge into the far 
wider valley traversed by the Chickamauga Creek, which 
enters the Tennessee river a short distance above Chatta 
nooga, and from thence move his army down to the place 
referred to. General Bragg, perceiving that if he re- 
mained at Chattanooga his communications would be 
seized and his army starved out, abandoned this strong- 
hold, and retreated south to Lafayette. General Rose- 
crans, misled by a despatch which he received from 
General Halleck, concluded that General Bragg had re- 
treated to Rome or Atlanta, and consequently adopted 
the latter of the two courses above indicated. The follow- 
ing is the despatch to which we refer : — 

"Washington, Sept. nth, 1875. 

' Burnside telegraphs from Cumberland gap, that he 
holds all East Tennessee above Loudon, and also the gap 
of the North Carolina mountains. A cavalry force is 
moving towards Athens to connect with you. After 
holding the mountain passes on the west, and Dalton, 
or some other point on the railroad, to prevent the return 
of Bragg' s army, it will be decided whether your army 
shall move farther south into Georgia and Alabama. It 
is reported here by deserters, that a part of Bragg" s army 
is reinforcing Lee. It is important that the truth of this 
should be ascertained as soon as possible. 

" H. w! Halleck, 

** Commander-in-Chief** 

Had General Rosecrans moved his whole army from 
Trenton direct to Chattanooga he would have taken peace- 
able possession of the stronghold, and also of Mission 
Ridge and Lookout Mountain, and thus have been able 
to guard all his communications with Bridgeport and 
Nashville, and to bid defiance to any forces that might 
have been brought against him. Under the impression, 



3l6 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

however, that Brag-g- was reinforcing- Lee, instead of Lee 
reinf)rcing- Bragg-, with the best commander and corps 
then in the Confederate army, Rosecrans sent General 
Crittenden to Chattanooga, and with the remainder of his 
army passed over the mountain into the broader valley 
referred to, expecting here to be reinforced by the main 
portion of Crittenden's forces, and to move south in pur- 
suit of General Bragg-. To his amazement and consterna- 
tion, however, our brave commander found himself about 
to be assailed by veteran forces quite one-third more 
numerous than his own, and that before he could have full 
time to get his army in readiness for the conflict. General 
Brags:, instead of retreating to Rome or Atlanta, was 
quietly waiting the arrival of General Longstreet, who was 
approaching as rapidly as the railroads could bring him 
forward. Of thd two armies which now confronted each 
other, ours was about 55,000 strong, while that of the 
enemy numbered from 80,000 to 90,000 men. Not a 
moment was to be lost on either side. Our army, Sep- 
tember 20th, was concentrated at a point midway between 
Chattanooga and Lafayette, and on the main road between 
the two places. General McCook's corps was on our 
right, that of General Crittenden in the centre, and that of 
General Thomas on our left ; General Polk held chief com- 
mand of the Confederate right, and General Hood, with 
Longstreet's veterans, held their left, until the arrival of the 
latter on the morning of the day above designated. On 
the 19th, a decided attempt was made by Polk to turn our 
left, and by seizing possession of the road to Chattanooga, 
to cut off our retreat to that place, and thus secure the 
capture of our entire army. General Thomas, anticipating 
such a design, opened the battle early in the morning by 
assaulting a Confederate brigade which seemed to be in 
an isolated position. This brought on a fierce conflict, in 
■which at one time our forces, and then those of the enemy, 
were worsted. The conflict ended, however, by the rout of 
the Confederate advances, and the driving back of the 
entire right upon their defences on the creek. Thus the 
day closed with a decided advantage on our part in this 
portion of" the field. On our right the enemy, after a 
S( v^^'- rannonad ^ made several very determined attacks, 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 317 

in which they gained temporary advantages, but were 
finally driven back with the loss of . many killed and 
wounded, and quite a number of prisoners. On all parts 
of the field the advantage was decidedly on our side, and 
inspired our army with bright hopes of success in the great 
battle to be fought on the day following. Such hopes, 
however, turned out to be illusory. Early the next morn- 
ing Longstreet, with the remainder of his corps, was on the 
ground, and assumed command of the Confederate left. 

The attack on the part of General Bragg was intended 
to have been commenced at daylight. A dense fog filled 
the valley, however, and delayed the battle until half-past 
8 a.m. According to the plan of the Confederate com- 
mander, the conflict was to have been opened by a flank 
movement of General Polk around our left, and by an over- 
whelming assault upon our left centre. Knowing that here 
would be the most decisive point of attack, Thomas was 
reinforced until he held command of quite one-half of our 
army. The advance of Polk was delayed, first by the fog, 
and then, when ready to move, by finding a full division 
of the Confederate left wing (Longstreet' s) directly in his 
front, and thus rendering an advance impossible until this 
obstacle was removed. Two hours of precious time, as 
he affirms, was lost by this strange accident. At length 
Breckinridge, on their extreme right, flanked Thomas 
with a full division, pushing his forces across the main 
road ; and then, facing to his left, attempted by desperate 
fighting to roll up our left wing upon its centre. This 
movement was taken up by successive divisions towards 
the Confederate centre, and all with the design which had 
been defeated the day before- — to cut off our army from 
Chattanooga. Thomas, however, was on this as on the 
day previous, fully equal to the occasion. Breckinridge, 
assailed by superior forces, was soon hurled back in utter 
confusion ; two of his Generals, Helm and Deshler, being 
killed, Major Groves, chief of his artillery, mortallywounded, 
and General Adams wounded and taken prisoner. Tn a 
similar manner were all attempts of General Bragg to turn 
our left and break our centre frustrated. 

While all things were thus prospering in our x:entre 
and on our left wing, a disaster occurred to our right 



3 I 8 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

which put in jeopardy our whole army. As Rosecrans 
early in the morning passed with his staff along the rear 
of his right wing, he perceived that McCook's right was 
too far extended, and that Davis with his division was too 
far to the right, and that the same was true of Crittenden's 
corps in reserve, and ordered the necessary changes. The 
movement of these several divisions from right to left was 
attended with the most fearful consequences. In these 
movements a gap was opened in our front, in consequence 
of the withdrawment of one of our divisions to the rear, its 
place not being closed up as was intended. Into this gap 
Longstreet instantly threw Hood's division, pushing at the 
same time that of Buckner on our right flank. By the^e 
assaults our whole right wing was utterly disordered, and 
rushed in a mingled mass in the direction of Rossville and 
Chattanooga. In this mass Rosecrans was borne along and 
separated from the rest of the army. He accordingly has- 
tened on to Chattanooga to reform the fugitives and make 
preparations for the reception of the rest of his army. 

Matters, however, were not, in reality, as desperate as 
at first sight they appeared. Almost our entire centre 
and all our left wing under Thomas were unbroken and 
stood firm. So was Crittenden's small corps, stationed, as 
we have stated, as a reserve, at Rossville. Thomas, alive 
to the perils which encompassed him, with cool deliberation 
moved back our centre and his own right, and reformed 
the forces under his command on a ridge directly across 
the road on which the Confederates were advancing in the 
full assurance of an easy and triumphant march upon 
Chattanooga, there to make prisoners of the entire army of 
the Cumberland. Before the assault of the enemy com- 
menced, Granger, with his corps of two divisions, came 
up. So did several brigades of our centre and right, which 
had retreated, but had remained unbroken, or had been 
reformed. These unexpected reinforcements Thomas so 
distributed as to protect his wings and strengthen the 
weak points in his line, his own batteries^ with all the guns 
that he could collect — guns abandoned by McCook's corps 
in its flight — being placed in positions where they could 
do the greatest possible service. The first service which 
General Granger did was to send two of his brigades under 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 319 

General Whitaker and Colonel Mitchell, and hurl a full 
division of Confederates from a ridge on Thomas's right, 
where a decisive flank movement was intended. By the 
capture and the holding of this ridge our right was fully 
protected. At 4 p.m. the tempest, in terrible fury, burst 
upon our devoted columns, the entire Confederate army 
moving upon them in solid masses. These masses boldly 
moved up in front of our line, where they were first mowed 
down by a discharge of grape and canister from our bat- 
teries, and were then compelled to recoil before the still 
more destructive fire of our infantry. When reformed, 
they would move up again and recoil as before, and for the 
same reasons. These useless and destructive advances and 
recoils were repeated, until at dark the enemy retreated 
south, and our divisions, in regular order, and by word of 
command from General Rosecrans, retired to Rossville, 
encamped there for the night, and the next day moved 
without being disturbed to Chattanooga. It is a smgular 
fact, that one of our soldiers, who happened to be sepa- 
rated from his company, slept for the night quietly upon 
the field held by Thomas, and was advised the next morn- 
ing, by a Confederate surgeon who was passing alone 
over the field, to follow on as quickly as possible after his 
own regiment. This incident clearly evinces the fact of 
the retreat of General Bragg at the close of the battle, our 
army being in reality left victors upon the bloody field. 

In his official report. General Rosecrans admits a loss, 
in killed, wounded, and missing, of 16,351 men, thirty-six 
guns, twenty caissons, and 8,450 small arms, while he claims 
to have brought off 2,288 prisoners. General Bragg admits 
a total loss of 18,000 men in all, of whom about 16,000 
must have been among the killed and wounded. It was 
thus that, for want of proper combination and concentration 
of forces on our part, brave men were so recklessly 
slaughtered during this war. While, in all the great 
battles, our forces ought to have outnumbered those of the 
Confederates as two to one, or, at the least, three to two, 
the forces actually engaged were so brave and so deter- 
mined, and at the same time so nearly matched, that one- 
third of the number on each side would be uniformly 
slaughtered before either would retreat. 



320 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

The conduct of General Thomas on this occasion has 
but one parallel in the history of this war, that of Generals 
Pleasanton and Sickles at Chancellorsville, and but few 
parallels in the history of war anywhere. The cool and 
self-determined deliberation with which he reformed our 
line after nearly one-half of it had been utterly broken to 
fragments, the precision with which he stationed his own 
forces and those which providentially came to his relief, 
and the steadiness with which he held his lines under the 
terrible fire and crushing assaults of the disciplined and 
seemingly overwhelming forces of the enemy, and all this 
while he was in constant peril of defeat from the ex- 
haustion of his ammunition, fully evince him as one of the 
greatest of military commanders. In all his career, he 
never lost a battle, while he often plucked a victory out of 
the hands of defeat ; and never in any battle were his 
ranks broken, though those of other Generals were shat- 
tered on both sides of him. 

General Bragg immediately followed our army as it 
retired to Chattanooga, took possession of Mission Ridge 
and Lookout Mountain, by which he fully commanded all 
our communications by railroad and the river, with our 
depots of supply, and drew up his army around the for- 
midable fortifications which the Confederates had pre- 
viously erected for their own defence. Knowing well that 
our army could not be captured by assault, the object oi 
the enemy was to compel Rosecrans to surrender through 
exhaustion of his supplies. 

The capture of Chattanooga, and with it the possession 
of East Tennessee, was a heavy blow upon the Confederacy. 
*• Chickamauga," says Pollard, " had conferred a brilliant 
glory upon our arms, but little else. Rosecrans still held the 
prize of Chattanooga, and with it the possession of East 
Tennessee. Two-thirds of our nitre-beds were in this 
region, and a large proportion of the coal which supplied 
our foundries. It abounded in the necessaries of life. 
It was one of the strongest countries in the world, — so full 
of lofty mountains, that it had been called, not inaptly, 
the Switzerland of America. As the possession of Switzer- 
land opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, 
and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN* 321 

easy access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and 
Alabama." 

Such were the obvious advantages which General 
Rosecrans had, by his very superior strategy and energy, 
secured to the nation In the course of a few weeks ; and 
far greater advantageous results, bringing hostilities to a 
speedy termination, and all this with no reverses, would have 
arisen, had his wise counsels been heeded by our military 
authorities at the national capital. Yet for a single mishap 
— a mishap occasioned wholly by false information con- 
veyed by these authorities — was he, immediately after his 
great success, and that by the authorities through whom 
his misfortune had been occasioned, suspended from his 
command, and openly disgraced before the nation. On 
the 19th October, he (we cite from Mr. Greeley now) 
** received an unheralded order relieving him from com- 
mand, which he at once obeyed, leaving for the North the 
next day — ^just a year having elapsed since he left Corinth, 
the theatre of his then recent victory, to find himself 
assigned to command In this department." 

Deeming It best for the service that he should depart 
before it was known to the soldiers that he was superseded, 
he bade adieu to his comrades in the following order : — 

" Head- quarters, Department of the Cumberland, 
Chattanooga, Tenn., October i<)th, 1863. 

" The General commanding announces to the officers 
and soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland that he leaves 
them, under orders from the President. 

'* Major- General George H. Thomas, In compliance 
with the orders, will assume command of this army and 
department. The chiefs of all the staff departments will 
report to him. 

" In taking leave of you, his brothers in arms, — 
officers and soldiers, — he congratulates you that your new 
commander comes not to you, as he did, a stranger. 
General Thomas has been identified with this army from 
Its first organization. He has led you often into battle. 
To his known prudence, dauntless courage, and true 
patriotism, you may look with confidence that, under God, 
he will lead you to victory. 

21 



322 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

" The General commanding doubts not you will be as 
true to yourselves and your country in the future as you 
have been in the past. 

** To the division and brigade comnianders he tenders 
his cordial thanks for their valuable and hearty co-opera- 
tion in all that he has undertaken. To the chiefs of the 
staff departments and their subordinates, vi^hom he leaves 
behind, he owes a debt of gratitude for their fidelity and 
untiring devotion to duty. 

" Companions in arms — officers and soldiers — fare- 
well ; and may God bless you. 

•' W. S. RoSECRANS, Major- General" 

Of the Generals who held high commands during this 
war, Rosecrans ranks among the three or four w^ho 
evinced capacity to plan and execute important cam- 
paigns. In every instance, the single one excepted in 
which he was misled by false information from our Com- 
mander-in-Chief, his strategy was faultless. The same 
remarks hold equally in respect to his dispositions upon 
the battle-field. It was he who, in the absence of the 
General in command, planned — and, in fact, executed — ■ 
those movements which annihilated the Confederate forces 
in Western Virginia, prior to the first Bull Run disaster ; 
and it was the General in command of the department 
who, by his flaming dispatches, appropriated to himself 
all the credit of those splendid victories. Prior to the 
disaster referred to, General Rosecrans submitted a plan 
for the conduct of a great campaign in Virginia — a plan 
which, if it had been adopted, would have ensured as com- 
pletely the annihilation of the military power of the Con- 
federacy in Eastern as the plan above referred to did in 
Western Virginia. What that plan, in all its essential 
features, was, has been shown in the former parts of this 
treatise, — the same plan having suggested itself to two 
m.inds who Vv'ere total strangers to each other's thoughts 
A more disinterested, patriotic, or braver soldier, and one 
who deserves a warmer place in the hearts of his country- 
men, never had a place in our armies. 

The condition of the Army of the Cumberland did at 
length stir the dull brain of our Commander-in-Chief, and 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 323 

did sug-g-est to his mind the idea of a concentration of the 
national forces, — a concentration, however, not for offen- 
sive, but defensive measures. Dispatches were accordingly 
sent to Burnside, now strengthened by the return of the 
9th corps, in East Tennessee, to Pope in the north-west, to 
Schofield at St. Louis, to Hurlbut at Memphis, and to 
Grant at Vicksburg, to hasten on all the troops they could 
spare for the relief of our army at Chattanooga. Finding 
that from none of these sources could the needed aid be 
got forward in time, the i ith and 12th corps of the Army 
of the Potomac, 20,000 men, were in an almost incredible 
space of time, sent, under General Hooker, to Middle 
Tennessee, to hold General Rosecrans's communications. 
In eight days, this force was debarked, in fighting order, 
on the Tennessee River, at the point of their destination. 
In January 1863, General Halleck, in connection with our 
Secretary of War, did, as we have seen, persuade President 
Lincoln that no such force could be conveyed one-half 
that distance in four weeks. To give unity to all opera- 
tions for the end under consideration, General Grant, on 
the retirement of General Rosecrans, was appointed to the 
supreme command of all the western departments. He 
was, however, at the time, sick at New Orleans, and was 
unable to assume command at Louisville until October i8th, 
when he telegraphed General Thomas to hold Chattanooga 
at all hazards, and received the reply, *' I will hold on till 
we starve." 

While these events were transpiring, General Bragg 
sent the main portion of his cavalry, under Generals 
Wheeler and Wharton, across the Tennessee, between 
Chattanooga and Bridgeport, into Middle Tennessee, with 
orders to fall upon and destroy General Thomas's supplies 
and supply trains. In the Sequatchie Valley this force 
captured and destroyed a train of from 700 to 1,000 
waggons. At McMinniville they captured 600 prisoners, 
destroyed a large waggon and car train, and burned a great 
quantity of provisions. These forces were finally pursued 
by our cavalry and infantry, and escaped into North 
Alabama, losing upwards of 2,000 of their own number, 
but capturing and parolling more of our men, and destroy- 
ing millions of dollars of Union property. On his way to 



324 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Chattanooga, General Grant found General Hooker, with 
all his forces, at Bridgeport, preparing to cross, there, and 
dispute with General Bragg the right to compel our army 
under Thomas to supply itself with provisions by means of 
waggon trains dragged round through the mountain passes 
in Middle Tennessee, — a service in which 10,000 horses 
were soon used up, while the autumn rains would ere long 
render the roads so impassable that our army could be 
supplied but a few days longer. 

On the 26th Hooker passed his whole army over 
the Tennessee at Bridgeport, and on the 28th reached 
Wauhatchie, a small station on the railroad in Lookout 
Valley, about twelve miles from Chattanooga, — here 
threatening General Bragg with a flank attack on his left 
wing. This movement was made intentionally in full view 
of the Confederate forces on Racoon and Lookout Moun- 
tains, the object being to conceal or divert the enemy's 
attention from certain corresponding movements to be 
made by Generals Grant and Thomas from Chattanooga. 
While General Hooker was moving from Bridgeport up 
the river, on its south, a division under General Palmer 
moved down the river, from Chattanooga, on its north side. 
Both movements being in full view of the enemy, com- 
pletely diverted his attention from what was being done 
elsewhere. In the meanwhile. Palmer, having crossed the 
river, and joined Hooker in his advance to Wauhatchie, 
4,000 men under General Smith, chief engineer, 1,800 by 
boats, and the remainder on the north side of the river, 
passed down to Brown's Ferry, some three or four miles 
below Chattanooga. Those on the boats landed on the 
south side, and seized the hills which overlook the ferry. 
The remainder, who had marched down to the same point 
on the north side, were ferried over, and by daylight all 
the heights which rise from the river on the one side, and 
from Lookout Valley on the other, were firmly secured. 
By 10 a.m. an excellent pontoon bridge was completed, 
and a free communication was opened between Hooker 
at Wauhatchie and our army at Chattanooga. With 
Hooker's left resting upon Smith's force and bridge, 
Palmer being in his rear as a support, a safe waggon 
route of twenty-eight miles over a good road from Bridge- 



THE CHATTANOOiA CAMPAIGN. 325 

port was secured for our army supplies, and eight miles 
by using- the river from Bridgeport to Kelly's Ferry. 
Thus all peril to our army from want of supplies was com- 
pletely removed, and the defeat of General Bragg, as our 
army was being so effectively reinforced, was rendered 
only a question of time. 

But one attack was made upon any part of General 
Hooker's line. This was done by General Law's division 
of Longstreet's corps, who held Lookout Mountain. General 
Geary's division, as was judged, lay exposed to surprise 
by a night attack, which was made at about i a.m., 
Oct. 29th, and that with loud yells and terrible impetuosity, 
driving in our pickets at a run, and charging Geary's 
division in front and on both wings. His brave men, 
however, stood firm, returning as deadly a fire as they 
received, until Carl Shurz with his division of Howard's 
corps came rushing from Hooker to their aid. The fight 
was soon over. One brigade under General Tyndale 
carried the hill from whence our men were enfiladed on 
their left, while another brigade under Colonel C. Smith, 
73rd Ohio, charged up another very steep hill still farther 
behind, and carried that at the point of the bayonet, 
taking some prisoners. The Confederates accordingly 
fled, leaving 153 dead in Geary's front, and admitting a 
total loss of 361 men, that of General Hooker being 437 
in this affair and since he crossed the Tennessee River, — 
to wit, 76 killed, 339 wounded, and 22 missing. Imme- 
diately after this, Racoon Mountain, with all west of 
Lookout Valley, was wholly cleared of Confederate forces, 
and all the positions of our entire army were rendered 
perfectly secure, — so obviously secure, that General Bragg 
made no more efforts to disturb them. 

From this time to the 23rd November, when Sherman 
and his corps had arrived from Vicksburg and Memphis, 
nothing was done by either of the armies in and about 
Chattanooga. General Grant was waiting for reinforce- 
ments, and General Bragg was in suspense in respect to 
the question what he should do. Learning, however, that 
Burnside's forces were in a helpless and exposed condition, 
in consequence of being separated into small detachments, 
and scattered, as we have stated, all over East Tennessee, 



326 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the Confederate commander detached General Longstreet, 
with his corps, for the purpose of destroying our forces 
there, and regaining that portion of the State. No excuse 
can be furnished for the conduct of General Burnside after 
he entered Tennessee. In his advance, he passed through 
Kingston and Loudon, September ist, neither of which was 
over a three or four days' easy march from Chattanooga. 
At the former place, he came into communication with the 
pickets of General Rosecrans, and was consequently in- 
formed of the critical condition of the Army of the Cumber- 
land. He was also, as General Halleck affirmed, under 
a specific order to move from Loudon westward to the 
Tennessee River, and form a junction with Rosecrans. In 
disregard of all these considerations. General Burnside, 
after taking possession of Knoxville, and capturing 2,000 
prisoners and fourteen guns at Cumberland Gap, scattered 
his forces, as already stated. In his advance, which was 
made with great secrecy and despatch. General Long- 
street found matters very much as he desired, until he sat 
down before Knoxville. Before he arrived at Loudon, he 
inflicted a loss upon our forces, as officially stated, of 650 
men, and several of our batteries. From this point he 
had several encounters with inferior forces under the 
immediate command of General Burnside, the latter being 
driven from position to position, losing heavily at each 
one, until he finally threw himself- into Knoxville, and 
from within its fortifications confronted his foe, until, as 
we shall see, General Sherman came to the relief of our 
beleaguered forces, and General Longstreet retired. 

On the arrival of General Sherman, he, with his corps, 
was placed on the left of our army, and above Chattanooga. 
Thomas, in the centre at that point, was strengthened by 
detaching General Howard, with his corps, from Hooker, 
and uniting him with the former. General Hooker's com- 
mand was thus reduced to less than 10,000 men, and no 
two of his divisions had ever before fought together in the 
same battle. They were united now, however, under a 
General in whom all confided, and felt sure of victory. 

The initiative was taken in the centre, Granger moving 
out at 2 p.m., November 23rd, driving the enemy back, and 
seizing a hill in front of the Confederate line, a hill known 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 327 

as Orchard Ridge, capturing about 200 prisoners. This 
onward movement was supported by one made by Howard 
on the left of Granger, so that the important advantage 
gained was held through the night. Hooker, at 4 a.m. 
the next day, made an advance upon the north face and 
west side of Lookout Mountain. The object of this move- 
ment was to attract General Bragg' s attention in this 
direction, while Sherman should pass his corps over the 
Tennessee above Chattanooga, and constitute our advanced 
left wing in that direction. As he reached Lookout Creek, 
Hooker found it so swollen by the recent rain that a delay 
of three hours was occasioned in building bridges and 
crossing his several brigades over. By 11 a.m. the cross- 
ing of his entire force was effected. At this time his 
batteries were so located on all available hills as to enfilade 
the Confederate infantry as they came down from their 
camp on the mountain to man their breastworks and rifle- 
pits below. As these forces fell back, our infantry followed 
them, " climbing," in the language of Mr. Greeley, "over 
ledges and boulders, crests and' chasms, and driving the 
Rebels through their camp without allowing them to halt 
there." General Hooker, knowing that General Bragg 
had reinforced this wing of his army, ordered the men to 
be halted and re-formed as soon as they should reach the 
summit where the Confederate camp was laid. The men, 
however, disregarding all such orders, by whomsoever 
given, rushed on, hurling all the enemies they encountered 
down the eastern declivity, and Lookout Mountain was 
in Union hands. Hooker's line was now formed on the 
eastern declivity of the mountain, his left extending near 
the mouth of Chattanooga Creek. At 4 p.m. he informed 
General Grant that his position had been rendered un- 
assailable. For the capture of this mountain, the soldiery 
and under-officers are to be accredited, that capture being 
made by a spontaneous movement of the men, — a move 
ment made, not only without orders, but in opposition to 
an express order for a halt. To the Confederates, as one 
of their officers afterwards said, "the capture was a sur- 
prise in the daytime, and that in the immediate presence 
of forces abundantly sufficient to repel any attack that 
could have been made upon the position, could thos^ 



328 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

forces have been formed in time to resist the per- 
fectly unexpected attack." In their advance our forces 
took many prisoners, and on the mountain they found 
20,000 rations, and the camp equipage of three brigades, 
which the Confederates had left behind them in their 
sudden flight. The next morning Hooker continued his 
advance across Chattanooga Valley, and at night bivouaced 
on Mission Ridge, which the capture of Lookout Mountain 
had rendered indefensible. In this advance the ridge was 
assailed on the east by the division of Osterhaus, on the 
west by that of Garey, and in front by that of Cruft. By 
these combined movements the enemy on the ridge was 
so hemmed in that but few escaped slaughter or capture, 
the division of Osterhaus alone taking upwards of 2,000 
prisoners. Our forces also held Rossville, quite in the 
rear of General Bragg' s left wing, and rendering his entire 
position no longer tenable. 

After these decisive advantages gained by ^ Hooker, 
the task imposed upon Thomas in the centre, and Sherman 
on the left, was a very easy one, Bragg' s exclusive solici- 
tude being to withdraw his army in safety — that is, what 
remained of it — out of the crushing coil with which he was 
being encircled. On the morning of the 25th, Sherman 
was ordered to open the attack at daylight, and did so. He 
found the enemy in his front so strongly entrenched, how- 
ever, that up to 3 p.m. his columns had won no decisive 
success. At 2 p.m. Thomas received orders to advance. 
The position of the enemy here was on a steep ridge 
running along the front of the attacking column. Three 
divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Baird, 
Wood, and Sheridan, advanced, with double lines of skir- 
mishers in their front, directly into the enemy's rifle-pits at 
the foot of the ridge. These were soon cleared, and the 
lines, re-formed, followed the retreating foe so closely up 
the steep declivity that they received but little injury from 
the fire of the batteries above them. Near sundown, the 
ridge was in possession of our brave soldiers. The near- 
ness of night, and the stern resistance which Thomas 
received on bis left, prevented any further advance. In 
the night, Bragg withdrew from the field. He was fol- 
lowed by General Hooker as far as Ringgold, where, 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 329 

between our advance and Brag-g's rear, a sharp action 
occurred, followed by the retreat of the enemy. At Ring- 
gold, Hooker was required to suspend pursuit. 

Thomas returned at once from the battle-field to do for 
Burnside, in his extremity, what the latter had failed to do 
for Rosecrans in his, namely, to hasten on Granger's corps 
for the relief of Knoxville. This corps was joined by that 
of General Sherman, who assumed command of the whole 
expedition. On his advance, the last eighty- four miles 
were passed over, on Tennessee roads, in the month of 
December, in three days. On the approach of Sherman, 
Longstreet decamped from Knoxville, retreating unresisted 
to Russellville, just east of the Tennessee line, where he 
wintered his corps, mostly upon resources drawn from the 
loyal inhabitants of East Tennessee. As soon as Knoxville 
was relieved, Sherman, with his command, returned to 
Chattanooga. 

During the siege of Knoxville, Burnside lost about 
1,000 men; and Longstreet, in the different and fruitless 
attacks made upon our fortifications, must have lost quite 
three times that number. 

According to official report, our losses in and about 
Chattanooga amounted to 757 killed, 4,529 wounded, and 
330 missing, — 5,616 in all. "We captured," says the 
report, "6,142 prisoners, of whom 289 were commissioned 
officers ; 40 pieces of artillery, 69 artillery carriages and 
caissons, and 7,000 stands of arms. The entire Con- 
federate loss may be safely set down as quite 10,000 or 
12,000 men. In addition to this, in the language of Mr. 
Greeley, "their losses in guns, munitions, supplies, and camp 
equipage, were seldom paralleled." If we grant the cor- 
rectness of the estimate of General Rosecrans, that the 
Confederate commander fought at Chickamauga with 
92,000 men, he must have retreated from Chattanooga, 
Longstreet having withdrawn his corps, with considerably 
less than 40,000 dispirited and comparatively disorganized 
troops. 

In contemplating the events before us; we are con- 
strained to affirm that the main credit of rescuing our 
army at Chattanooga from its perilous condition, together 
with the defeat of General Bragg, must be awarded to 



330 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

General Hooker. He it was that, prior to the arrival of 
General Grant, planned and afterwards executed those 
masterly movements which brought his army over the 
Tennessee River at Bridgeport to Wauhatchie, and then 
brought his left wing into communication with our army in 
its beleaguered condition, and not only wholly freed that 
army from all its perils, but ensured all the advantages 
which it afterwards gained. It was he who afterwards, 
with less than 10,000, men, and in the presence of a 
watchful and powerful foe, gained those positions on 
Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge, — positions which 
rendered General Bragg's position wholly untenable. Had 
not these heights been secured, there is no probability at all 
that General Bragg's position could have been successfully 
carried. It was Hooker that, with his immortal 10,000, 
and after all their prior hard fightings, — very little of such 
fighting having been done by the rest of the army, — it 
was he, and his immortal 10,000, I say, that pursued the 
[enemy in his retreat, and inflicted the final blow upon him 
[that he was allowed to inflict at Ringgold. I refer to one 
fact which ought to be stated in this connection, — I refer 
to the fact that the main part of the forces that he had 
brought with him from the army of the Potomac, was 
taken from him, and he was compelled to act the most 
important part in the whole drama with so small a force, 
and that constituted of three divisions who had- never 
before acted together on any battle-field. This I say 
before the nation and the world, that the order which took 
from Hooker more than one-half of his force, to strengthen 
Thomas, who had more than 40,000 men under his imme- 
diate command, and was in a condition of no peril at all, — • 
the order which placed Sherman with his corps intact on 
our left, and then required Hooker to act the part assigned 
him, — was dictated by a form of stupidity which has few 
parallels in the history of war. The part which Hooker did 
act in this campaign, in connection with his former history, 
absolutely evinces the fact that had he been continued in 
command of the Army of the Potomac, instead of being 
superseded by such a man as Meade, and had he been 
permitted to employ the forces immediately put under 
the command of his successor. General Lee would never 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN". 33 I 

have set his foot upon "the sacred soil of Virginia'* 
as commander of an army, nor would General Longstreet 
ever have seen Georgia or Tennessee as commander of 
of a Confederate army. 



MEASURES ADOPTED AFTER THE DEFEAT AND RETREAT 
OF GENERAL BRAGG. 

In judging of the military character of a General, we 
must take into account, not merely his victories, but the 
uses which he subsequently makes of such advantages. 
Judged by this standard. General Grant will stand very low 
in the scale of merit as a military commander, as far as 
this Chattanooga campaign is concerned. What was the 
condition of General Bragg' s army when he retreated from 
Chattanooga? Undeniably he took with him less than 
40,000 men, and these in as visibly dispirited and dis- 
organized a condition as an army well could be. At 
the same time, he left behind him nearly or quite one-half 
of his guns, caissons, and munitions, and the greater 
portion of his provisions and supplies. In short, he was 
in no condition at all to offer any effective resistance, or 
fnake a rapid flight bad he been pursued. No army, on 
the other hand, was ever in a better condition for an 
effective pursuit than was ours. Its viorale, as all its deeds 
evinc'ed, was perfect. Nor was any part of the army 
in a state of physical exhaustion, the whole command of 
General Thomas having been resting for months. The 
state of the roads, as evinced by Sherman's march of 
eighty-four miles in three days, over far worse roads than 
those between Chattanooga and Atlanta, were not in an un- 
favourable condition for pursuit. Besides, if Bragg could, 
as he did, retreat. Grant might have pursued. As a 
motive of infinite weight for a prompt and vigorous 
pursuit, the fact was palpable at the time that the military 
power of all the Confederate States between the Missis- 
sippi and Savannah rivers was then present in that 
defeated and dispirited and helpless army, and the de- 
struction of it involved the destruction of that power, and 
the complete subjugation of all these States. Nothing can 
be m.ore obvious than is the fact that before General 



332 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Grant, at that time, lay an unimpeded march to Atlanta, 
and that on that march the only army these Confederate 
States could have raised might have been utterly dis- 
organized and dispersed, and the war brought to a final 
close, as far as all the Middle States of the Confederacy 
were concerned, — an event which would have speedily 
terminated the war everywhere. All this might have 
been done, and all needed aid have been sent to Burnside. 
Thomas and Hooker united could have crushed Bragg on 
any field where they might have encountered him. We 
affirm, without fear of contradiction, that nothing but 
blank stupidity, or an unaccountable blindness to the most 
palpable facts, can present the least excuse for the neglect 
of the golden opportunity of a most effective pursuit then 
presented. 

Let us now consider the case of Sherman and Burnside 
at the time of Longstreet's retreat from Knoxville. The 
united forces of these two Generals outnumbered those of 
their antagonist, nearly or quite, by two to one. The 
forces of Burnside east of Knoxville could have been so 
concentrated in Longstreet's front as to have most 
materially retarded his retreat, while Sherman and Burn- 
side might have fallen upon his rear and perfectly crusheci 
him. Longstreet's corps never ought, but as paroled 
prisoners of war, to have seen Virginia again. 

What was done under the circumstances ? No pursuit 
whatever, either of Bragg or Longstreet, was attempted, 
that of Hooker to Ringgold excepted. On the other hand, 
as soon as Burnside was relieved, Sherman marched back 
to Chattanooga, and an army of 100,000 men lay idle there 
until the opening of the next spring campaign, while the 
Confederate armies moved off at their leisure, and as a 
recuperated and reorganized force met us upon the deadly 
field the next year. It took General Sherman from three 
to four months, the next year, to move from Chattanooga 
to Atlanta, a distance of 138 miles; and on his bloody 
march he lost from 50,000 to 60,000 brave men. In less 
than three or four weeks, General Grant might have fol- 
lowed General Bragg over the same road, and not have 
lost 10,000 men on the march, and would have annihilated 
the power of the Confederacy while on the way. To reap 



/ 



THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 333 

the advantages of victory, however, was not the policy of 
this war. The non-pursuit, of Longstreet on the one 
hand, and of Bragg on the other, and the repose of our 
army for quite five months at Chattanooga, would have 
been In accordance with the conduct of Wellington and 
Blucher, had they rested at Waterloo for five months after 
the defeat of the French army on that neid. 



CHAPTER XXIL 

MINOR CAMPAIGNS DURING THIS WAR. 

The whole science of war, according to the elder Napoleon, 
consists in this, in knowing how to be strongest at the point 
where the main issue lies. No more important utterance 
relatively to this science was ever given forth. The im- 
mutable condition of knowing how to be strongest at the 
point referred to, is a prior knowledge of what the main 
issue is, and where it lies. Here we have the peculiarity 
which distinguishes great commanders from those of an 
inferior order. The former intuitively apprehend what the 
main issue is, where it lies, what combination of forces is 
requisite to settle that issue, and then determine their 
arrangements and movements in fixed subordination to 
the one end under consideration. The latter either mis- 
take the real issue or confound the main with the minor 
ones, and hence do little or nothing effective. Blucher, 
for example, saw clearly that the issue of the campaign in 
Belgium did not lie between Thielman and Grouchy at 
Wavre, but between Wellington and Buonaparte at Water- 
loo. Hence the great Prussian commander did not turn back 
upon Grouchy, but precipitated his main army upon Buona- 
parte. When Lord Cornwallis concentrated his forces and 
fortified himself at Yorktown, Washington saw at once that 
the whole issue of the war lay at that one point, and with 
that one commander. Cornwallis was accordingly cap- 
tured, and peace followed, and the independence of the 
United States was acknowledged. After the War of the 
Rebellion assumed a definite form, we contended, and in 
all our communications with the leading minds in Wash- 
ington so affirmed, that that war had, in reality, but tv\o 



i 



MINOR CAMPAIGNS DURING THIS WAR. 335 

issues — the army under General Lee, and that of the Con- 
federates in the valley of the Mississippi east of that river ; 
and that the annihilation of these armies, or either of them, 
would be followed by a speedy collapse of the entire Con- 
federacy. In the judgment of our military authorities, the 
real issues of the war, as far as they thought of any such 
questions, lay not at all with the armies of the Confederacy, 
but with its vast territories, leading cities, seaports, rivers, 
and strongholds ; and hence all military combinations and 
movements were directed to the settlement of these minor 
instead of the main issues. When we visited Washington 
in January 1863, the great issues of the war, as definitely 
stated by our military authorities, lay in the seaports of 
the Confederacy and on the Mississippi river, and hence 
the main direction of the war resources of the nation were 
determined with reference to two ends — " the plugging-up 
of the Southern ports," and " the opening of the Mississippi 
river." We read at that time, before the President and 
leading members of Congress, a carefully prepared paper, 
the exclusive object of which was to demonstrate the fact 
that the issues of that war, as then pending, did not lie in 
those ports, or on that river, but with the army of General 
Lee, an army then lying in a most exposed condition at 
Fredericksburg. To the validity of the argument the 
President at first fully assented, but was afterwards over- 
persuaded by the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary 
of War. When General Lee had crossed his army over 
the Potomac in the summer of 1863, the war had but one 
issue, and that issue lay with that army in the State of 
Pennsylvania. That one army captured, and the war was 
in reality at an end. Nothing could be more manifest. 
The fact that 20,000 men were transported from Washing- 
ton to Bridgeport, Tenn., in eight days, demonstrates the 
deduction that, while more than 30,000 might have been 
brought from the Carolinas and the vicinity of Fortress 
Monroe to Gettysburg, a still larger force might have been 
brought from our great armies at the west to Harrisburg, 
in time to have taken an effective part in securing the end 
under consideration. Our Commander-in-Chief, however, 
saw but one issue in the circumstances, the issue involved 
in the single question, How can the invading army be got 



336 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

out of Pennsylvania, and back again upon "the sacred 
soil " from whence it came ? When less than 40,000 men 
under General Bragg, and nearly 100,000 under General 
Grant, confronted each other at Chattanooga, the great 
issue of the war lay then in the immediate presence of 
our General. He had but to destroy that single army 
which lay in his immediate presence, an end which he 
might have accomplished in a few weeks, and the war 
would have been terminated in three months from that 
time. The only issue which General Grant then saw was 
involved in the single question, How could General Bragg 
be driven from the position he then occupied ? When 
General Sherman raised the siege of Knoxville, a great 
national issue was presented to him and General Burnside 
for their settlement, — an issue involved in the question 
whether the enemy present before them should be crushed, 
or permitted to retire in peace to Virginia. Had that one 
corps been captured or dispersed, Lee's power would have 
been broken, and the Confederacy would have received 
"a deadly wound" which would have ensured its speedy 
dissolution. When that siege was raised, all issues which 
presented themselves to Sherman and Burnside's appre- 
hensions were settled, and nothing more was to be done 
but for the former to lead his forces back to Chattanooga. 
The eye of the commander is the eye of the army which 
he leads. If the vision of that eye is dim, or of a limited 
compass, that army will be constantly employed in settling 
issues which determine nothing relatively to the main ends 
for which the army has being. Here lay the misfortune 
of our armies and nation, during this war. 

From its commencement to its close, our Commanders- 
in-Chief, and for the most part our Generals in immediate 
command of our great arruies, never knew what the real 
issues of the war were, or where those issues lay, and con- 
sequently never made their campaigns or their victories 
conducive to the ends for which the armies they com- 
manded had being. We now refer, in the first place, in 
illustration of the principles above stated, to the various 
expeditions which were so frequently sent out from New 
Orleans and vicinity into the interior of Louisiana, and 
into the State of Texas, — expeditions generally consisting 



MINOR CAMPAIGNS OF THIS WAR. 337 

of from 30,000 to 40,000 men. After the capture of New 
Orleans, the expulsion of the Confederates from Missouri, 
and especially after the opening of the Mississippi by the 
capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, none of the real 
issues of the war lay west of that river. All that was 
needed to be done, as the event finally demonstrated, was to 
capture the two armies of the Confederacy east of this river. 
This being done, the war was ended at once everywhere. 
In all the expeditions to which I have referred, our forces 
were defeated. Had they all been successful, however, 
nothing effective would have been done to bring the war 
to a termination. Yet so blind were our Commaaders-in- 
Chief to the real issues of the war, that so late as the 
spring of 1865, an expedition was planned for the subju- 
gation of the State of Texas, — an expedition to consist, of 
from 60,000 to 80,000 men. Without sending any army 
at all into that State, the war was, as we shall see hereafter, 
brought to a close, by diverting one-half of this expedition, 
leaving the rest to do nothing, — by diverting one-half of this 
expedition from its intended destination to the point where 
the real issue of the war did lay. Thus far, my countrymen 
have honestly supposed that General Grant, by his. great 
military talents and energy, devised and executed the plan 
by which the war was brought to a close, and that by a 
sudden final collapse of the Confederacy. It will appear 
demonstrably evident, before this treatise is completed, that 
while the war was suddenly and unexpectedly brought to a 
close, this end was accomplished by an unexpected disposi- 
tion of the national forces, — a disposition of which he had 
never formed a conception, — a disposition the idea of which, 
and the duty of ordering which, was brought to his mind by. 
an order from the President ; and that at the very time when 
General Grant received this order, he had planned and was 
in the very act of carrying into execution the wildest and 
most absurd scheme that ever danced in the brain of a Com- 
mander-in-Chief — a scheme the execution of whicli wuuid 
in all probability have led to great national disasters, and 
without a question would, as General Grant expected, have 
protracted the war on to the spring of 1866. The nation 
has yet to learn how much it owes to the immortal Sumner, 
as the heaven- appointed medium of communicating to otfr 

22 



338 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

then President, and inducing him to adopt, the plan which 
suspended and reversed that of General Grant, and secured 
that unexpected disposition of the national forces which 
led. and that without bloodshed, to the surrender of the 
armies of Generals Lee and Johnston, and to the sudden 
ternnination of the war. We shall suspend our further 
criticisms upon these absurd, useless, and disastrous expe- 
ditions into Western Louisiana, and up the Red River into 
Texas, until we shall come to speak of that last most 
absurd and gigantic of all expeditions that ever was 
planned, and which was in the act of being carried out in 
the spring of 1865, when a sudden order from the President 
iiiduced those final dispositions above referred to. 

The remarks above made have an obvious application 
to the various expeditions sent round and landed on the 
coasts of the Confederate States. These expeditions were 
too small to make any extended, and but very few per- 
manent, conquests, and everywhere acted as vexatious 
irritants upon the surface of the Rebellion, provoking the 
people everywhere to the most determined resistance. As 
soon, for example, as McClellan became Commander-in- 
Chief, instead of employing the vast resources under his 
control for the settlement of the great issues directly before 
him, he fixed the attention of the nation upon a contemp- 
tible expedition, under General Burnside, around the coasts 
of North Carolina. This expedition made some seemingly 
important and extensive conquests in the eastern parts of 
the State, — conquests which were of no value at all to us, 
which were maintained at an enormous expense, and were, 
Newbern and Roanoke Island excepted, almost entirely 
lost to us, by and during the year 1864. At another time 
an expedition was sent out which destroyed salt-works in 
West Bay, near St. Andrew's Sound, — works owned by 
the Confederate Government and private individuals, and 
valued at ^^3, 000,000. Expeditions of a similar character 
were, from time to time, sent around to the coast of 
Florida, and into the interior of that State, and did suffi- 
cient, and no more, damage than to madden the people 
against the Union cause. These expeditions were so 
numerous that, had they all been combined into one, and 
sent to localities where important issues lay, they would 



MINOR CAMPAIGNS OF THIS WAR. 339 

have rendered valuable service. In the form in which 
they were sent, they simply weakened our central forces, 
and did nothing but injury anywhere. To any person 
who has made the science of war a careful study, and 
has comprehended the principles on which the great and 
successful campaigns of the world have been conducted, 
nothing can be more painful, and even agonizing^ than 
the spectacle which this War everywhere presented, the 
spectacle of all main issues utterly misapprehended and 
neglected — of the vast resources of the nation directed 
to minor ends which had no bearing whatever upon the 
objects for which those resources were called forth — of 
victories unimproved, and golden opportunities let slip as 
if from design — and of the most reckless and lawless 
expenditure of life and treasure. With great satisfaction 
we record the fact that at length we did gain a hearing, 
and did secure the adoption of measures which stopped 
the outflow of blood and treasure, by terminating the 
Rebellion. Of this the reader will be fully informed as 
he progresses onward in the study of the contents of this 
treatise. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

OUR NAVAL EXPEDITIONS AROUND THE 
SOUTHERN COASTS. 

After the capture of Beaufort, Hilton Head, and New 
Orleans, the only ports of vital importance in the posses- 
sion of the Confederate States were Wellington, Charles- 
town, Savannah, and Mobile. To "plug up," in the 
first place, and to capture these ports, in the next, became 
from the commencement of the war a prime object of our 
naval and military authorities. All these ports were open 
to attack on two sides — on their water and land sides, or 
from both at the same time. The only peril to which any 
one of these ports might be subject was, in the estimation 
of our Government, from its water side, and that in case of 
a foreign war. Hence, upon this side every one of them 
had been almost impregnably fortified prior to the War of 
the Rebellion. After they were taken possession of by the 
Confederates, they were all, in every form which science 
could suggest, strengthened on the sides under consider- 
ation, by additional fortifications of the most formidable 
character. On their land sides, however, all these ports 
were almost utterly defenceless ; and after we had obtained 
possession of Hilton Head, Savannah, Charlestown, and 
even Wilmington, were perfectly open to successful 
attack, and bloodless capture, by an army sent inward from 
the point first named. Indeed, no places were ever more 
assailable than were all these in the direction under con- 
sideration. At any period of the war, 80,000 men sent 
down to Hilton Head, and moved out from thence for the 
purpose under consideration, would have captured all 
these ports in a very short time. The validity of this 



OUR NAVAL EXPEDITIONS. 34 I 

judgment was rendered demonstrably evident by the fact 
that, as soon as General Sherman approached Savannah, 
with from 50,000 to 60,000 men, on its land side, that 
stronghold was abandoned without a show of defence ; 
that Charlestown, as soon as it was threatened with an 
attack on the same side, by the presence of Sherman in 
Savannah, was evacuated without being approached at all ; 
and that Wilmington was captured at once, when assailed 
by General Scofield, on the side under consideration. 

Yet while our military and naval authorities put forth 
untold efforts, with naval and land forces, to "plug up" 
and capture these ports, they were always, until the 
period designated, assailed on the sides where they were 
strictly impregnable, and this with no attempt whatever 
to approach them in the direction where they were per- 
fectly defenceless, and most readily approachable, and 
when we had an abundance of unemployed forces that 
might have been sent forward for that purpose. These 
useless and most expensive efforts were, in the face of the 
most earnest expostulations, persevered in from the begin- 
ning up to near the close of the war, — and that when it 
was well known and acknowledged that, deprived of these 
ports, the Confederates would be immediately rendered 
powerless for self-defence. When, in January 1863, we, in 
the presence of leading members of Congress, expostulated 
with President Lincoln on the subject, and inquired of him 
why the advantages which the possession of Hilton Head 
furnished us were not improved to sunder into two parts 
the Confederacy, on the one hand, and to capture these 
ports by assailing them on their land sides, on the other, 
his only reply was that the exclusive object of taking and 
holding that port was to use it as a :iep6t for the supply of 
the navy around the Southern coasts. Our reply was, that 
while that port was of great use for such purposes, it pre- 
sented the most obvious advantages for inflicting the most 
crushing and deadly blows at the vital centre of the Con- 
federacy. No such considerations, however, were of any 
dvail to induce our military and naval authorities to 
adopt any effective measures for putting a stop to the 
fearful effusion of blood and treasure, by bringing the 
conflict to a termination by capturing these ports. When 



342 THE Al\rERICAN REBELLION. 

we take into account what was done, for example, to 
*' plug up" and capture the port and city of Charlestown, 
the heart sickens at the details of the expenditure of blood 
and treasure in abortive attempts to gain the ends under 
consideration. As soon as our ironclad fleet was in 
readiness, it was pushed directly into that harbour, and 
there subjected to the concentrated fire of all the forts and 
batteries around, until one vessel was sunk, and the 
others forced out in a shattered condition. Then, after 
untold efforts, a position was secured on an island from 
whence Fort Sumpter and the city could be reached 
by guns of the longest range. Years were now spent in 
bombarding the fortress and city, and assailing, with 
unsupported infantry, fortifications which could be readily 
defended by a few men against ten or a hundred times 
their number. All this was persevered in during these 
long years, when 80,000 men, sent out from Hilton Head, 
and approaching the city on the land side, would have 
captured it and its fortresses in a few weeks' time. 
Charlestown and the other ports and cities named could be 
seen and thought of by our military and naval authorities, 
however, but upon the sides where they were obviously 
unassailable. We shall recur to this subject again, when 
we come to consider the progress of events under the 
administration of General Grant as Commander-in-Chief 
of the armies of the United States. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

OPERATIONS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 
PRIOR TO THE APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL 
GRANT AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 

In the early part of September, General Meade became 
aware that Longstreet's corps had been sent to Georgia, 
and that Lee's force was, consequently, reduced to two 
corps, in all not over 50,000 men, — the army of the Poto- 
mac, under General Meade's immediate command, then 
consisting of five corps, numbering in all, nearly or quite, 
100.000 men present for service. Our army was at the time 
in the vicinity of Warrenton, and that of General Lee at 
Culpepper, a few miles south of Rappahannock station. At 
this time, General Pleasanton submitted to General Meade 
the following plan for a grand movement upon the enemy. 
The plan presented was this : General Pleasanton would 
divide his cavalry corps into two parts, and with these 
would cross the Rappahannock above and below Lee's 
position, threaten his two wings, and thus divert his atten- 
tion in these directions. While these feints were being 
made, two corps were to be moved to the railroad crossing 
at Rappahannock station, and threaten Lee with a front 
attack. The other three corps were in the meantime to 
be moved to Kelly's Ford, four miles below, passed over 
there, and then, by a forced march over the Rapidan, seize 
Gordonsville, in the rear of the Confederate army. When 
the three corps were ■ sufficiently advanced, the remaining 
two were to move down to Kelly's Ford, and follow on and 
join their companions at Gordonsville. By this movement, 
Lee, with his little force of 50,000 men, would be perfectly 
insulated, a force twice as numerous as his own being in his 



344 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

rear, holding all his communications, and separating- him 
hopelessly from all his supplies, while an important river 
would lie between him and the army in his rear. At the 
same time, an army nearly as large as that under General 
Meade would move out from Washington to attack the Con- 
federates from the north. Nothing was more feasible than 
the plan proposed, and in its accomplishment the capture 
of General Lee's army was inevitable. General Meade 
adopted the plan, and ordered promptly all the initiatory 
movements. General Pleasanton crossed the Rappahan- 
nock as proposed, and drew an impenetrable veil between 
General Lee and all that was going on in the direction of 
both his wings. The two corps moved to the crossings in 
their front, and the other three crossed at Kelly's Ford, as 
proposed. This was just at evening, and an open road for 
an unsuspected night march to Gordonsville was before our 
commander, every item of the plan having thus far been 
most fully carried out. As soon as he had got his three 
corps over the river, however, Meade's courage or his 
patriotism failed him. He accordingly ordered a halt, and 
during the whole night compelled one division of his 
army to march as rapidly as possible back and forth over 
the four-mile road between him and the two corps on the 
river above him. The object of this strange measure seems 
to have been to discover whether General Lee had become 
aware of what was going on. Without finding the remotest 
indication that such was the fact, our veteran commander 
turned from the course intended, and, moving up the 
river, placed his three corps on its south, opposite the two 
on its north side. 

In conversation with General Pleasanton in respect to 
the farce which our army had thus been compelled to 
enact, General Meade admitted that he had no heart to 
assault his antagonist, and proposed that General Pleasan- 
ton should assume the command, and order the move- 
ments he desired. To this General Pleasanton replied that 
he had no authority to do any such thing ; nor would the 
authorities at Washington confer any such power if requested 
to do it. While remaining in this position, two corps, the 
nth and 12th, were, as we have before stated, detached 
from the Army of the Potomac, and sent, under General 



OPERATIONS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 345 

Hooker, to that of the Cumberland. The places of these 
were soon supplied, and our commander addressed himself 
to do something effective for the public service. While 
making- preparations to do this something, — nobody, and 
probably not even Meade himself, knows what, — he was 
startled by a report brought to him by General Gregg, who 
commanded a division of cavalry on our right, namely, 
that that division had been driven back, and that the 
enemy were now crossing in force at Sulphur Springs and 
Waterloo. Frightened out of his senses by the spectre 
which had thus suddenly lifted its horrid form before our 
General's mind, he crossed his army over the river; and then 
ran, for dear life, 80,000 to 100,000 men, before less than 
50,000, — fled, we say, precipitately, first to Catlett's Station 
and then to Centerville, — to Fairfax Court House, as the 
Confederates affirm, — before he dared to look behind him, 
or permitted his army or himself to take breath. General 
Lee of course took advantage of this fright of our com- 
mander, and in the pursuit took several thousand prisoners 
with very little loss to himself, and did much damage by 
the destruction of Union property. There was nothing 
that any General of even ordinary courage and capacity 
would have desired more than that General Lee should 
have passed his army to the north side of the Rappahan- 
nock at the very points where General Meade supposed 
that the crossing was being made, such a movement giving 
our commander an opportunity to cut off the whole Con- 
federate army from their communications and supplies, and 
render its speedy capture a perfect certainty. To General 
Meade, and to such Generals as he is, such an oppor'jinity 
by such a movement on the part of the enemy, was as the 
sound of Gideon's trumpets to the hosts of Ammon. Such 
Generals not only disgrace their country, but humar^ nature 
itself. 

During Meade's flight and Lee's pursuit, .some inci- 
dents of a truly laughable character occurred. When 
General A. P. Hill, for example, with his co'-ps, struck 
our line of retreat, he, supposing himself ih the rear of 
our whole army, and being about to fall ujAin the fugi- 
tives before him, perceived, as he looked behind, that 
General Warren, with his entire corps, was also adv^anc- 



346 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

ing, with an immutable determination not to be stopped in 
his flight. After some severe skirmishing, Hill withdrew 
from the road into the woods, and Warren continued his 
retreat. Stuart, also, with a body of cavalry numbering 
some 2,000 men, in making a flank movement, got ahead 
of Warren, who was acting as our rear-guard, and became 
so completely hemmed in, that his entire force might 
have been captured, had our men been aware of the prize 
within their grasp. Stuart succeeded in concealing his 
cavalry in an old thicket — so near the road where our men 
passed by, that every word they uttered was distinctly 
heard by the enemy. While the rear of Warren's corps 
was encamped for the night right by this thicket, Stuart 
succeeded in getting three of his men through our ranks, 
and thus conveying a knowledge of his condition to 
General Lee. At daylight, the sound of Lee's guns indi- 
cated the approach of relief, when Stuart opened with 
grape and canister upon our astonished rear, and threw it 
into confusion. Taking advantage of the panic, he dashed 
by and joined his commander, we suffering considerable 
damage, while the Confederates suffered almost none 
at all. 

As soon as our army faced about, at Centerville, or 
Fairfax Court House, some twenty-five or thirty miles from 
Washington, General Lee, destroying the railroads, and 
leaving desolation behind him, deliberately and at his 
leisure moved back over the Rappahannock. Ashamed 
of what he had done, and under rebuke even from our 
Commander-in-Chief, General Meade at length moved 
back again to the point from which he had so shamefully 
retreated, and recrossed the Rappahannock, having cap- 
tured on the north side of it some 1,600 prisoners, who 
were cut off from the river by two of our brigades. After 
waiting at Rappahannock station until his communications 
were put in order, and he was assured that he was not 
likely to be assailed by General Lee, our commander 
ordered an advance. Crossing the Rapidan, and moving 
in the direction of Orange Court House, on two parallel 
roads. Orange Plank and the Orange Turnpike roads, 
our forces found themselves at length confronted by the 
army of General Lee, in a strong position behind a small 



OPERATIONS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 34.7 

Stream called Mine Run, a stream which crosses both the 
roads referred to at, right angles. After spending three 
or four days in reconnoitring the enemy's position, and 
thus giving him full opportunity to render it impregnable, 
General Meade concluded that the position was too strong 
to be assailed, retreated over the Rapidan, and entered 
into winter quarters at Culpepper Court House, General 
Lee retiring to Orange Court House, about twenty miles 
nearly south of our position. Thus ended the mission of 
the Army of the Potomac for the year 1863. 

While our army lay at Culpepper, an event occurred 
which ought to go into history. Among the officers of 
the army who were called before the Committee of Con- 
gress on the Conduct of the War, was General Pleasanton. 
While before the Committee, he was requested to present 
a plan for the conduct of the campaign in Virginia. To 
such a request it was, of course, the plain duty of the 
General to reply. The plan submitted was in substance 
this, and was thus presented. "I will suppose," said Gene- 
ral Pleasanton, "that one of you represents General Lee, 
and myself the commander of the Army of the Potomac, 
you being located at Orange Court House, I at Culpepper. 
I will assume, as the basis of my calculations, that you 
concentrate, for the defence of your position, 100,000 
men. I select as my centre, and the basis of my opera- 
tions, Culpepper. I do this for the obvious reason that 
it is a very important railroad centre, on the one hand, 
and that holding this position, on the other, I, in connec- 
tion with the army in the Peninsula, hold the control of 
Eastern, Central, and Northern Virginia, and cut you, as 
General Lee, off from the main sources of supply for your 
army. Having selected Culpepper as my centre, I pro- 
pose to concentrate there an army 250,000 strong — to 
fortify the place so that 25,000 men can hold it against 
your whole army — to complete the necessary railroad con- 
nections with this point, and then make it the depot of 
supply for my army. All these ends can be accomplished 
in a few weeks, and when three months' provisions for the 
army shall be collected, all things will be in readiness to 
open the campaign. My first movement will be to flank 
your position at Orange Court House, by sending out 



348 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

150,000 men to the vicinity of Stanton, thus threatening 
all your communications. Under such, circumstances, you, 
as General Lee, will be necessitated to take one of three 
courses. You will, in the first place, move out from your 
fortified position to attack me in the open country, — the end 
which I desire to secure. In case of your making this 
movement, I will move out 75,000 men from my position, 
throwing this force upon your right wing, while I shall 
precipitate 150,000 upon your centre and left. The result 
cannot be a matter of doubt. In moving out from your 
position, you will also be drawn off from your railroads, 
your present means of supply, and will soon be necessi- 
tated to surrender from want of provisions, your means of 
conveyance by waggons being very limited. Or you may 
remain in your position, and wait coming events there : 
in that case, I shall soon capture Linchburg, your main 
line of supplies, and, moving east on the south of James 
river, shall seize all your communications, cut you off 
from your supplies in every direction, and compel you, by 
starvation, to surrender. Or you may retreat upon Rich- 
mond, as you probably will do : in that case, I will move 
up with my whole army, and in connection with the forces 
in the Peninsula besiege you there with an army nearly 
three times as numerous as your own. Your surrender 
through starvation will be only a question of time. To 
finish up the campaign in Virginia, with the total annihila- 
tion of General Lee's army, 1 ask, at the farthest, but six 
months' time." 

Such are the substance and form of presentation of the 
plan submitted by General Pleasanton, — a plan perfectly 
practicable, and most clearly evincing, on the part of its 
author, great generalship. This plan embraced, as its 
prime object, not the capture of Richmond, or any other 
position, but the end for which the war was prosecuted, 
the overthrow of the Confederacy by the destruction of its 
central military force, the army of General Lee, — an end 
never contemplated by any of our Commanders-in-Chief, 
or, with one or two exceptions, by any of the commanders 
of our leading armies Positions, not armies, were the 
ends towards which all their combinations and movements 
were directed. Had the armies of the Confederacy been 



OPERATIONS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 349 

the centres towards which all combinations and movements 
of the national forces had been directed, one year would 
have been all the time requisite to have put down for ever 
that Rebellion. When we stated to President Lincoln that 
the destruction of the armies of the Confederacy, and not 
the capture of its territory, cities, and strongholds, should 
be the end of all military operations, the suggestion startled 
him as a new revelation to his mind. Such an idea, we 
repeat, had never been entertained at Washington. We 
refer to our military authorities. After General Pleasanton 
had presented the above plan, measures were taken by 
members of the Committee to whom it had been presented 
to have him appointed a Major-General in the army, he 
having long acted in that capacity, but never having 
received his appointment. As soon as it became known 
to the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of War 
that he had presented that plan, some member of the 
Committee betraying confidence, our brave General was 
arbitrarily suspended from his command in the Army of 
the Potomac, and sent to the Western Department. Of 
General Pleasanton, justice demands that this should be 
said : a braver, more energetic, and skilful commander 
of cavalry was unknown in either army. In counsel he 
always advised measures which subsequent events demon- 
strated to have been the wisest and the best. On the held 
his dispositions were faultless, he there proving himself 
more than a match for the best cavalry commander known 
in the Confederate army. No single General can be 
named to whom the nation owes more than to him, he 
undeniably having, by one of the most wonderful feats 
known in war, saved our army at Chancellorsville, and by 
his wise counsels and dispositions secured for us the 
victory of Gettysburg. It was an unpardonable offence, 
however, in the judgment, not of our venerated President, 
but of our Commander-in-Chief, and his immediate and 
controlling advisers, to perform such deeds, give such 
counsels, and even, when required to do it, to present 
such plans as the above. He was not the only General 
that was practically deposed for deeds and counsels which 
promised to bring that war to a speedy termination. 
Hooker, for example, was never permitted to have an 



350 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

active command in the field after his wondrous exploits 
at Chattanooga. This I know to have been the judgment 
of the wisest statesmen in Washington, that the men who 
actually controlled matters in the high places of military 
authority there, had no desire — but an opposite one — to 
bring that war to a speedy termination. The reason is 
obvious. The emoluments of office were too great, and 
the annual dispersion, in untried relations, of from 
;^500,ooo,ooo to ^1,000,000,000, presented too multiplied 
opportunities to amass untold private fortunes, to allow 
controlling minds to be willing that their opportunities 
should pass away by the early termination of that war. 
To show how everything was subordinated to private 
emolument, take into consideration one single fact. By 
a fixed order at Washington, whenever a cavalry horse 
was killed, or disabled from any cause, its rider was to be 
sent to Washington to be remounted there. No expostu- 
lations of the commander of the cavalry could induce a 
change of this order, by having the horses sent forward 
to the army, so that the ranks might not be perpetually 
diminished by absentees at the capital. This order became 
a controlling motive among cavalry- men to neglect their 
horses, or so expose or use them that they should become 
unfit for service, the riders by such means gaining coveted 
opportunities for vacations, suspensions from active service, 
and visits to the national capital. By this one measure, a 
large amount paid for each horse and his new furnishment, 
went into the pockets of speculators. Such facts coming 
to the surface of observation, indicate the ocean current of 
corruption and fraud which prevailed through that war, 
and perpetuated it through those long years of wasteful 
expenditure of treasure and blood. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL ULYSSES GRANT 
AS LIEUTENANT-GENERAL AND COMMANDER- 
IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 

The act of President Lincoln in appointing General 
Halleck Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United 
States, was, as we have stated, regarded with regret 
and reprobation by the armies which he was appointed 
to command, and by the people of all parties, without 
exception. Nobody welcomed him to his high office, and, 
like his predecessor, *' he departed without being desired." 
During the long period in which he held command, he 
originated no plan for the conduct of our campaigns, and 
suggested no combination of forces — a combination which 
promised to give efficiency to our arms for the suppression 
of the Rebellion. While he uniformly had nearly, or quite, 
1,000,000 brave and disciplined soldiers under his com- 
mand, — one of the largest armies ancient or modern war- 
fare ever knew, — these immense forces were under his 
immediate direction, so scattered and dispersed, and that 
at unsupporting distances from one another, and located 
where most of them were of no use whatever to the 
national cause, that on the fields where our great battles 
were fought, the Confederates, with their few and feeble 
forces wisely concentrated, were in a majority of cases 
successful ; and our forces were too few, or our commanders 
too ignorant, when we gained a victory, to improve 
it. During the period of his command, also, golden 
opportunities, as we have shown, frequently presented 
themselves, when, by a proper combination of the forces 



352 THE AMERICAN REBELLION 

under his command, he might have brought the war to an 
immediate termination ; yet every such opportunity he 
failed to discern and improve. Permit us here to notice 
one such opportunity which lay directly under his vision 
during the last months of his command. It was well 
known in the Army of the Potomac, and in Washington, 
that after the departure of Longstreet to Georgia, all the 
available forces under General Lee's command for the 
defence of Virginia amounted to less than 60,000 men, 
while forces more than 200,000 strong lay under the 
Immediate control of our Commander-in-Chief, — forces 
which might have been combined for the destruction of 
that little army. Suppose, now, that Burnside's corps at 
Annapolis had been reinforced by 20,000 men, and that 
these had been sent down to Fortress Monroe, and united 
with the 30,000 under command of General Butler in 
that vicinity. An army at least 80,000 strong might have 
been landed at Bermuda Hundred, and have taken 
possession of all Lee's communications south of James 
river, and have captured Richmond too, if he had not 
moved to its rescue. Between the 80,000 under Butler, 
and the 100,000 under Meade, how long could Lee have 
kept the field ? None but demented minds can fail to 
perceive that, under such circumstances, in a very few 
weeks Lee's army, Richmond, Virginia, and the Carolinas, 
would have been in our possession. Our Commander- 
in-Chief, however, had no capacity to perceive such an 
opportunity, or to conceive the combination of forces 
requisite to avail himself of it. Either this was the case, 
or he lacked the patriotism which would prompt the 
ordering of the combinations and movements demanded by 
the circumstances. One or the other of these deductions 
must be adopted. 

In view of all the facts and experiences of the war thus 
far, the conviction had become absolute among leading 
members of Congress, that under the administration of 
General Halleck and his immediate and controlling ad- 
visers, the prospect of bringing the terrible conflict to a 
successful termination was most distant, if not hopeless. 
At the same time they were assured with equal absolute- 
ness, that President Lincoln could not be induced, such 



APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL GRANT. 353 

was the influence of the Secretaries of State and of War 
particularly on his mind, to supersede Halleck by appoint- 
ing- any other Major-General in his place. Hence the 
necessity, in their judgment, of adopting some measure 
which would, under the pressure of national sentiment 
openly expressed through Congress, impel the President 
to make the change obviously demanded by existing 
exigences. After mature deliberation, the following 
measure to secure these results was adopted by over- 
whelming majorities in both Houses of Congress, namely, 
*' the revival of the grade of Lieutenant-General of our 
armies, and the recommendation of Ulysses S. Grant for 
the post." This measure received the prompt approval 
of the President, and General Grant was appointed to 
the supreme command, to which his new and high office 
most obviously entitled him. These measures were con- 
summated on the 8th March, 1864. The most obvious 
considerations render it undeniably evident that such a 
measure can receive the approval of impartial history but 
in view of the most imperious national necessity. No man 
but General Washington had ever been honoured by such 
an appointment. General Scott having only occupied the 
post by brevet. All the known facts of General Grant's 
life prior to the war revealed him as utterly disqualified to 
command a great army, and especially of one numbering 
more than 1,000,000 men. Nor can the impartial but 
critical historian find anything in his military career 
during this war, thus far, to justify his elevation to such 
a pre-eminence. His first essay, after he held an inde- 
pendent command, his essay at Belmont, was undeniably 
rash, — a measure in which much was lost, and vastly more 
risked, and all with no prospect whatever of any important 
advantage. At Donaldson he won deserved honour. At 
Shiloh, as we have seen, his conduct was most inexcusably 
censurable, not to say criminal. His campaign at Vicksburg, 
as we have also seen, was, though a final and marked suc- 
cess, most awkwardly conducted and needlessly protracted. 
All the measures which led to the relief of the Army of the 
Cumberland at Chattanooga were in full operation when 
he assumed command there, while the measures which he 
then adopted were indications of military wisdom of a 

23 



354 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

very low order. Yet no General who had held a high 
command, had, as a matter of fact, gained such advantages 
and captured so many prisoners as he had. One quality 
he undeniably did possess — the will to act and the courage 
to fight. He would, on assuming command, hold in his 
hands a club of untold weight, and was sure to strike 
somewhere, even though blindly. It remains for impartial 
history to reveal the manner in which he " demeaned him- 
self in his high office." 

The plan of the grand campaign under the direction of 
General Grant. 

On receiving notice of his appointment, he at once 
repaired to Washington, and was, March 8th, formally in- 
vested with his office as Commander-in-Chief of the 
armies of the United States. Paying a mere flying visit 
to the Army of the Potomac, he started back to Chatta- 
nooga to concert with General Sherman, who had been 
invested with the command of the entire Western De- 
partment, the plan for the great campaign about to be 
inaugurated. According to the plan agreed upon, three 
great movements were to be commenced at one and the 
same time. The Army of the Potomac was to act against 
General Lee for the capture of Richmond ; that of the 
Cumberland was to move against General Johnston, who 
had superseded General Bragg, for the capture of Atlanta; 
and that of the Western Army, under Genernl Banks, 
was to move into the heart of Texas, for the purpose of 
ending the war in that quarter. The reason assigned for 
the simultaneous movement of the Army of the Potomac 
under the immediate command of General Grant, and of 
that of the Cumberland under General Sherman, was to 
prevent Lee reinforcing Johnston, and Johnston reinforcing 
Lee. Let us stop here for a few moments, and consider 
carefully the essential elements and characteristics of this 
plan. Any well-informed military critic will at once detect 
in it at least five fundamental errors. 

I. The plan itself involves a fundamental misappre- 
hension of the real issues of the war at the time. But 
two issues then presented themselves, — the army of 
General Lee on the one hand, and that of General John- 



APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL GRANT. 355 

ston on the other. It was perfectly obvious that, these 
armies being disposed of, the war was at an end every- 
where. There was no more occasion, in settling the actual 
issues of the war, — and this was afterwards fully verified, — 
there was no more occasion, we say, to send an army into 
Texas than there was to send one to Alaska. All the 
national forces should have been combined and concen- 
trated for the final settlement of the two issues above 
designated. 

2. This plan was also based upon a contingency which 
did not exist, and was not at all likely to occur. In the 
absence of Longstreet, who was separated at an un- 
supporting distance from both the Confederate armies, 
General Lee had under his command less than 50,000 
men, while the army under General Johnston very little, if 
at all, exceeded that number. Where was the peril of 
either of these Generals dividing his own forces to re- 
inforce the other, and that while each was confronted by 
an army more than twice as strong as his own ? We can 
hardly conceive a more obvious or essential blunder in 
planning a campaign than we have before us. 

3. This plan involved a delay in the movement of the 
Army of the Cumberland of quite two months, a period 
which General Johnston was certain to improve, and did 
improve, to the uttermost, to reinforce, and reorganize, and 
his disorganized forces re-supply with guns, and to employ 
his army, and all the able-bodied slaves of Georgia, in 
fortifying every defensible position in those mountain 
gorges between Chattanooga and Atlanta — gorges through 
which Sherman would be necessitated to force his uncouth 
way. Nothing but the most imperious necessities — and no 
necessities at all existed in this case — could excuse such a 
delay under such circumstances. 

4. This delay, we remark again, kept this army in 
demoralizing idleness during these two spring months, and 
threw forward the campaign, in that unhealthy and pesti- 
lential region, into the hot summer months, the most 
enfeebling and fatal period of the year for northern sol- 
diery, — months in which the least sickness, and very slight 
wounds, as it was affirmed during that campaign, could 
hardly result in anything but death, and did most com- 



3'56 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

monly thus result. We feel quite safe in expressing the 
opinion, that of the more than 50,000 men which were 
lost during- that summer march of 128 miles, the loss of 
more than 30,000 should be put to the account of this 
most imprudent delay in opening the campaign. 

5. Finally, the known circumstances in which the 
armies of Lee and Johnston were at the time, demanded 
most imperiously the immediate and prompt opening of 
the campaign on the part both of the Army of the Poto- 
mac and of that of the Cumberland. Before General 
Sherman lay an almost unobstructed road to Atlanta, and a 
defeated and demoralized army not half as numerous as 
his own, — an army, too, which had just lost nearly or quite 
one-half of its guns. While there was no prospect that, 
during these two months, Sherman's army would be in- 
creased, from 10,000 to 20,000 men were certain to be 
added to that of Johnston. While it was certain that the 
condition of Sherman's army would in no respects, during 
these months, be improved at all, that of Johnston was 
certain to be brought from a disorganized to a well- 
organized state. At the beginning of these months Sher- 
man, as we have said, had an open way before him to 
Atlanta. At their close, he was certain to find every 
defensible position on his march bristling with the most 
formidable fortifications. Nothing but the most perfect 
blindness to the most palpable facts can account for this 
two months' delay in opening the campaign in Georgia. 

The case is still worse for General Grant in Virginia. 
By a flank movement in the direction of Stanton he could 
have placed an army of from 80,000 to 100,000 men 
between Lee and Longstreet, and rendered it impossible 
for them ever to reunite their forces. By sending Burn- 
side, reinforced by 10,000 or 20,000 men, down to Fortress 
Monroe, an army not less than 70,000 strong could have 
been landed at Bermuda Hundred, and the immediate 
capture of Lee's army been rendered an absolute certainty. 
In the circumstances in which Lee's army was at the time 
when General Grant received his commission as Com- 
mander-in-Chief, a Wellington, Napoleon, Moltke, or any 
military commander of ordinary capacity, would not have 
asked for more than two months' time to finish up fully the 



' APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL GRANT. 357 

campaign in Virginia, and thus put a speedy end to the 
war. When the armies of Wellington and Marmont lay 
in the vicinity of one another in Spain, and each com- 
mander was waiting for the other to make some mistake, 
Marmont made a movement by which one of his wings 
was separated to a considerable distance from the rest of 
his army. The moment Wellington was informed of the 
fact, he exclaimed, " Marmont is ruined," and by in- 
stantly precipitating the English army upon that wing, 
Marmont was ruined. Had a General of one- fourth of 
Wellington's ability received Grant's commission, he 
would never have gone to Chattanooga to lay out a plan 
for the general campaign. Within twenty-four hours after 
receiving his commission, his orders would have been 
issued for the movement of our armies to secure the most 
decisive advantages then most palpably existing. This I 
have affirmed before the nation, and this I here repeat 
before my country and the world, and do so without fear 
of being contradicted by any candid reader of common 
sense, and especially by any competent judge of military 
matters, — that in the interval between the reception of his 
commission and the opening of his campaigns, General 
Grant ought to have totally finished up the campaign in 
Virginia, and thus practically ended the war: that what the 
nation is really indebted to him for, is a needless protrac- 
tion of the war for more than a year after the period in 
which it might have been ended — a needless loss of more 
than 150,000 brave men — and a needless increase of the 
national debt to the amount of from ^500,000,000 to 
j^ 1, 000,000,000. 

Comparative amount of the Union and Confederate forces 

at this time. 

There is still another aspect of this subject which must 
be fully taken into account, before we can form an ade- 
quately correct judgment of the campaigns in prospect. 
We refer to the relative amount of forces in the Union 
and Confederate armies at the time. According to 
the official report of the Secretary of War, the report 
submitted to Congress the ist of December, 1862, the 
Union army, according to the report of the Adjutant- 



358 TilE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

General, submitted some months previous, "amounted to 
750,000 men, well armed and equipped," a force which, as 
the same report affirms, would, during- the month of 
January of the following year, be increased to quite 
1,000,000 men. This immense force was diminished, 
during the year 1863, through losses in battle, and the 
expiration of terms of enlistment, by more than 200,000 
men. These vacancies, however, were more than sup- 
plied by the addition of upwards of 50,000 conscripts, 
83,242 recruits by voluntary enlistment, and upwards of 
50,000 coloured troops, — a force which was increased to 
quite 180,000 while General Grant held supreme com- 
mand. Of the veterans whose term of service expired in 
the fall of the year 1863, according to the official state- 
ment of the Provost- Marshal-General, "over 136,000 
tried solders, who would otherwise, ere this, have been dis- 
charged, were secured for three years longer." The army 
subject to General Grant's orders, at the time when he 
assumed supreme command, was quite equal in number 
to that which existed one year previous, and amounted 
to an effective force of quite 800,000 men. On the 
ist February, 1864, the President, under a special law 
of Congress, issued a call for a draft of 500,000 men ; 
on the 14th of the next month, he issued another similar 
call for 200,000 men; on July i8th, 500,000, and on 
December 20th, 300,000 were called for ; making in all a 
draft of 1,500,000 men during this year. In the spring 
and summer of this year, a temporary addition was also 
made to our armies of 100,000 men, furnished by the 
several States by voluntary enlistment for one hundred 
days. When we affirm, therefore, that during his 
supreme command General Grant had constantly under 
his control an effective force of quite 800,000 men, we are 
undeniably within the circle of truth. At the time when 
McClellan was superseded by Burnside, the Army of the 
Potomac, as we have seen, numbered upwards of 300,000 
men, and that exclusive of the large force under General 
Butler in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, and the forces 
under General Dix at Baltimore, and in the Middle 
Department. At the time when. May 5th, General Grant 
opened the campaign from Culpepper, this army was in 



APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL GRANT. 359 

all respects much superior to what it ever was under 
General McClellan. 

Since the above was written, we have found in the 
volumes recently published by General Sherman, not only 
a verification of the statements which we have made 
relatively to the amount of force under the command of 
General Grant, but full proof that our estimate is far 
within the circle of truth. General Sherman states that 
the forces under his command numbered about 340,000 
men, and that of these upwards of 180,000 were present 
and fit for duty. It is well known that the Army of the 
Potomac outnumbered that of the Cumberland by up- 
wards of 50,000 men. That this was the case, we have 
been assured by a General who held a high command 
in the former army up to a few weeks of the time when 
General Grant was appointed Commander-in Chief. From 
the time when General Grant assumed command up to 
the close of the war, our armies undeniably numbered 
upwards of 1,000,000 of men. 

How numerous were the armies of the Confederacy 
during- this period ? According to official and reliable 
historic statement, these armies in the field, in all the 
Confederate States, did not amount in all to 200,000 men. 

General Lee was never able to confront General 
Grant's immense forces with an army over 70,000 strong; 
while all the forces which the Confederate States could 
furnish General Johnston, against General Sherman, 
amounted to less than 60,000 men. The Union army, 
during the entire period under consideration, undeniably 
outnumbered that of the enemy as quite four or five to 
one. Yet the war, under these unheard-of circumstances, 
dragged its slow length along for upwards of one year, and 
would, as our Commander-in-Chief expected, have been 
protracted during the year 1865, and even longer still, 
had not the execution of the plan which he had definitely 
laid down, and was putting into execution, been, by in- 
fluences outside the army, fundamentally changed. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 
UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 

On the 4th May, 1864, the Army of the Potomac moved 
out from Culpepper, and that of the Cumberland from 
Chattanooga, on their respective campaigns ; while, about 
the same time, General Banks moved upon his unfortunate 
expedition up the Red river. 

The original plan of the campaign of the Army of the Potomac, 

The original plan of the campaign for the army first 
designated was the following. The corps of General Burn- 
side, about 40,000 strong, was to be conveyed by water 
from Anapolis to Fortress Monroe, and incorporated with 
that of General Butler, an army quite 60,000 strong being 
thus organized in that vicinity. When Grant should move 
out from Culpepper, Butler, with his army of 60,000 men, 
was to land at Bermuda Hundred and seize Petersburg, on 
the one hand, and all Lee's communications south of James 
river, and Richmond if possible, on the other. 

This plan, it will be at once perceived, is an exact copy 
of the one we laid before the President and other leading 
minds in Washington, in January, 1863, — a plan fully 
approved at the time by the corps commanders of the 
Army of the Potomac, and, as we have been informed, by 
General Butler, who had then returned from New Orleans. 
It was General Butler, as we have also been informed, who 
submitted the plan to General Grant and secured its adop- 
tion by him. Had the plan, as originally projected, been 
carried out, and especially with the addition of 10,000 or 
20,000 men, brought up from the Carolinas and sent down 
Irom Washington, which could have been done as well as 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 36 1 

not, it would have been, most obviously, the grand move- 
ment of the war, and would soon have ended the Eastern 
Campaign, by the capture of Lee's army, of Richmond, 
and the ready conquest of Virginia and the Carolinas. 
Just before he was ready to move, however, Grant ordered 
Burnside to move from Anapolis to the vicinity of Cul- 
pepper, and at the same time issued an absolute order to 
Butler to land with 20,000 men at Bermuda Hundred, and 
accomplish, or attempt the accomplishment of, the great 
flank movement above indicated. General Butler did move 
as commanded, and seized the railroad between Petersburg 
and Richmond, and in his despatches affirmed himself 
able to hold the advantage he had gained. The nation 
received the intelligence with ecstatic joy, and inferred 
from it the great success of the campaign which was being 
inaugurated. We openly spake of the movement with 
deep regret and reprobation. Our views were soon the 
topic of general remark in the community, and the late 
Judge Barbour called upon us, and thus remarked : " Dr. 
Mahan, the Republicans are saying very hard things of 
you, and I have called to advise you to be cautious about 
what you may say. We know very well that ever since 
the war began you have advocated the identical move- 
ment which General Butler has made, and now, when it 
has been successfully made, you speak of it with reproba- 
tion. Such inconsistencies appear mysterious and inex- 
cusable to us, and I would seriously advise you to restrain 
further remarks upon the subject." " Please say to the 
Republicans and Democrats too. Judge Barbour," we 
replied, "that Dr. Mahan will continue to utter what he 
thinks on this and other subjects. It is true, as you state, 
that I have advocated such a movement, and that to secure 
such a movement was a known object of my visit to Wash- 
ington in the winter of 1862-3. While I have thus advo- 
cated this movement, I have, as you and the Republicans 
and Democrats around you well know, ever maintained 
that this movement should not be made with an army less 
than from 70,000 to 100,000 strong. Now that it has been 
made with 20,000 men, I pronounce it a ridiculous and 
tragic farce. Please say to our Republican and Demo- 
:ratic friends, that Dr. Mahan affirms that General Butler 



362 iHE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

will be driven back with loss the very first blow he shall 
receive, and that that blow will fall within two or three 
days. Say to them, further, that Dr. Mahan expresses the 
sad belief that, in ordering this absurd and tragic farce, 
General Grant has revealed an utter incapacity to lead a 
great army in a campaign of vital importance such as this 
is, and that the campaign which he has inaugurated will be 
a disastrous one." " But General Butler says that he can 
hold his present position." " I know that he says so^ I 
tell you, however, that he can't do it, and that events will 
issue as I have foreshadowed them." We all know now 
that the blow did fall, and that General Butler was driven 
back as predicted, and was " bottled up at Bermuda Hun- 
dred." For the credit of General Butler, it should be said 
that, prior to this event, he made the attempt, with a force 
20,000 strong, to capture Richmond by surprise, and was 
only prevented doing so by a culprit who, by bribery, 
escaped from prison, and gave the Confederates timely 
notice of the impending peril. In this expedition our 
commander marched his infantry the astonishing distance 
of 80 miles in fifty-six hours, and moved his cavalry 150 
miles in fifty hours. 

A plan proposed. 

When we learned that Burnside was ordered to Cul- 
pepper, instead of being sent to Fortress Monroe, we 
forwarded to Washington the following plan for the con- 
duct of the campaign, — a plan which was laid before the 
President and his advisers, — namely, nothing should be 
done within the circle of Butler's command. He, with his 
forces, on the other hand, should be brought up to the 
Department of Washington, and there united with the 
corps of Burnside. With 10,000 to 20,000 men added to 
this body, a second army should be constituted and secretly 
located at the crossings over the Rappahannock above 
Fredericksburg. When all things should be in readiness, 
this army, under General Butler, for example, should cross 
the river, and by a rapid march through Chancellorsville 
and Spottsylvania, move directly upon Richmond, — General 
Grant, with his army, in the meantime, moving directly 
upon Lee's position at Orange Court House. In this double 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 363 

movement, the contiguous wings of our two armies should 
be kept in continuous communication with one another, so 
that, in an exigency, either army could go to the other's 
help. Under such circumstances, General Lee would ba 
necessitated to adopt one or the other of the following 
courses. He might remain where he was, and await there 
the approach of General Grant. In that case, Butler 
would capture Richmond and seize all Lee's communica- 
tions south of James river. Being thus cut off from its 
supplies, the capture of the Confederate army would be 
only a question of time. Or, General Lee might move out 
to attack Butler. In that case, in the open country, Lee 
would encounter an army as large as his own, while Grant, 
with a still larger force, would fall upon the Confederate 
army and crush it. In the next place, Lee might retreat 
to Richmond. In that case, he would soon find himselt 
surrounded with a circle of fire, through which it would be 
impossible for him to break, and, by starvation, he would 
soon be forced to surrender. Or, finally, Lee might at- 
tempt a retreat into the Carolinas. In that case, while 
hard pressed by our forces, he would be thrown from his 
railroad communications, cut off from his supplies, and 
from want of provisions be necessitated to disperse or sur- 
render his army. It is perfectly obvious, that had this, or 
the plan previously suggested by General Pleasanton, been 
adopted, the destruction of General Lee's army would have 
been accomplished in a short time, and at a very small 
expense of human life. All the known principles of military 
science, and all the examples of successful warfare, required 
that Grant should have made Lee's position at Orange Court 
House his objective point, or centre, and that he should 
have approached that position in connection with a great 
flank movement upon Lee's right or left wing, and it 
mattered little which. 

The campaign as actually co7iducted. 

It now remains to consider how a campaign inaugurated 
by a false and tragico-farcical movement south of James 
river, in the first instance, and directed towards a totally 
wrong centre, in the next, was conducted by our Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 



364 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Moving" out from Culpepper, advancing on a single 
line, and making Richmond his objective point, General 
Grant was necessitated to cross the Rapidan, and pass 
through a region of country known as the Wilderness, an 
almost totally uninhabited region, from which the timber 
had often been cut off for mining purposes, and had con- 
sequently become a densely overgrown thicket. This 
Wilderness, which is situated directly east of General Lee's 
position at Orang^e Court House, extends south from the 
river named to the vicinity of Spottsylvania Court House, 
and is crossed, among others, by two excellent highroads 
which branch off from the village where the Confederate 
army lay, and consequently furnished its ever-vigilant 
commander the best possible opportunity to assail and 
strike through ours when on its line of march. It was 
over this river, and through this Wilderness, and in the 
form stated, that General Grant made his advance upon 
Richmond. What, judging it from the military stand- 
point, shall we think of that advance? It was made, 
permit us to say, in the first place, upon one of the most 
perilous and universally condemned and reprobated prin- 
ciples known to the science of war. We refer to a lateral 
movement, on a single line, directly in front of the position 
occupied by a powerful and ever-vigilant foe. It was 
just such a movement, on the part of the forces of the 
Coalition, that gave Buonaparte his world-renowned vic- 
tory at Austerlitz, and Wellington his great victory over 
Marmont in Spain. This lateral movement of General 
Grant was made, we add, in the most perilous circum- 
stances conceivable. No spot in the wide world can 
be selected where such a movement would give greater 
advantages to the enemy, than General Grant's movement 
through that Wilderness presented to General Lee. The 
roads diverging from Lee's position, and cutting our line 
at different points, gave him the best possible facilities to 
advance his army upon that line, while the Wilderness 
itself gave him the best possible opportunities to conceal 
his movements, and to deliver his blows at the very times 
and places when and where the effects would be most fatal 
to our army. Nor is it possible to conceive of such a bad 
movement made in a more careless and stupidlv presump- 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 365 

tuous manner than was this of General Grant. It cannot 
be shown, while he was moving on the worst principle, and 
in the most perilous circumstances conceivable, that he 
took any proper caution at all to guard his extended line 
against surprise. On the other hand, he moved on, into and 
through that Wilderness, almost exclusively, as he would 
have done had he known that no enemy whatever existed 
to disturb his march. No wonder that Lee's attack was 
a surprise, and that it cost us the horrible loss of between 
20,000 and 30,000 brave men. A commander of common 
intelligence and prudence, if he had resolved on such a 
movement, would have stopped a division at each of the 
roads referred to : the first that touched them, would have 
deployed those divisions in battle array, sent out his 
pickets in the direction of the enemy, rendering a surprise 
impossible, and then led the rest of his forces in the rear of 
those divisions. Our army, however, moved blindly on, 
as if their commander had lost his reason, or never had 
any. Let us now consider the facts of the case. 

Having reduced his army, Burnside's corps excepted, 
from five to three corps, General Hancock being put in com- 
mand of the 2nd, General Warren of the 5th, and General 
Sedgwick of the 6th, the grand movement commenced May 
4th. Warren, followed by Sedgwick, crossed the Rapidan at 
Germania Ford, and pushed on in a serpentine course into 
the Wilderness. Hancock, crossing at Ely's Ford, several 
miles below, moved in the direction of Chancellorsville. 
The first day our advance was almost wholly, as General 
Lee intended it should be, unimpeded, the Confederate 
pickets falling back without hardly firing a gun. As soon 
as our line was well extended into the Wilderness, a region 
unknown to our commanders, but well known and carefully 
studied by the enemy, the Confederate army, which had 
been looking northward in the direction of our position 
at Culpepper, faced to the right, moved up on the roads 
above referred to, and formed their line of battle parallel 
to that of our carelessly moving columns. The Confede- 
rate line was formed in most propitious circumstances, 
very strong defences lying at Mine Run, some six miles 
east of their position, — defences to which they could safely 
retreat in case of defeat. This army, like ours, was divided 



366 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

into three corps, commanded respectively by Generals 
A. P. Hill, Longstreet, and Ewell. What saved our army 
from a total rout was the fact that Longstreet's corps, 
lately arrived from Tennessee, was stationed at Charlottes- 
ville, two marches distant from Orange Court House, and 
only came up in time to take part in the battle of the 
second day. The Confederate line was directly parallel 
to that on which Warren's and Sedgwick's corps v^ere 
moving, — that of Hancock, who moved on another road, 
being miles distant, and quite in advance of Warren's most 
advanced division. The arrangement of the Confederate 
line brought Hill, who was on their right, in conflict, June 
5th, with Warren, while Ewell, with his corps, struck 
Sedgwick. As Warren was moving unsuspiciously along, 
Hill suddenly drove in the 5th New York Cavalry with 
loss, and struck our advancing column heavily in front 
before our army was in position to make or receive an 
attack. The shock was irresistible, of course, and one 
brigade after another was driven back with great slaughter. 
About 3 p.m., Hancock, who had received orders to close 
up on Warren's left, was seen approaching. Hill, who 
had closed round Warren's left flank, threw a strong force 
between our two corps, which were endeavouring to form 
a junction. This brought on a most terrible conflict, 
in which our columns were saved by the most obstinate 
fighting from being utterly routed. A little after i p.m., 
Ewell opened upon Sedgwick. In the early part of the 
conflict, only a small part of Ewell's corps having come 
up, the advantage was on our side, and the enemy were 
compelled to give ground. At length, the Confederates 
having come up in force, our line was charged and driven 
back with loss, we not only losing heavily in killed and 
wounded, but also about 1,000 prisoners, having in our 
prior advance captured about 300. Thus the battle ended 
for the first day, our loss being exceedingly heavy as 
compared with that of the enemy. 

The morning of the next day, June 6th, the battle 
opened early, Longstreet having come up on the part of 
the Confederates, and taken position between Hill and 
Ewell ; while Burnside, by a forced march during the 
night, had arrived on our side, his corps being thrown in 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 367 

between Sedgwick and Warren. The intention of Grant 
was to have opened the battle by an advance on our 
side, Sedgwick being ordered to advance at 5 a.m. This 
advance was anticipated, however, by an attack from 
Ewell, he attempting to turn our right flank. This 
attack, which was twice repeated during the forenoon, 
was only a feint to mask the real assault which was to 
be precipitated upon Hancock. At 5 a.m. Hancock 
moved forward and pressed Hill back nearly two miles, 
capturing a large number of prisoners. Here our ad- 
vancing line was struck by Longstreet's veterans, who 
had just come up, and our whole front was thrown into 
confusion, and was saved from a complete rout by the 
aid of Burnside's men. Longstreet, in turn, was driven 
back, and himself was disabled by a severe wound. The 
enemy now massed upon Warren, and drove him back to 
his entrenched line. Still farther to the right, the lamented 
General James S. Wadsworth fell in an endeavour, by his 
division, to stem the tide of death that was rolling over 
our devoted ranks. During a short lull, our centre was 
strengthened by throwing Burnside's corps between those 
of Hancock and Warren. While this was being done, 
General Lee assuming direct command, after the fall of 
Longstreet, of Hill's and Longstreet's corps, fell with 
crushing weight upon our left and left centre, forcing 
them back, and striking so heavily upon Stevens's division 
of Burnside's corps, that it fled in disorder, and the 
Confederates rushed through our broken line. Carroll's 
brigade of Hancock's corps now assaulted the enemy in 
flank, and they in their turn were driven back. This 
ended the conflict on our left and centre. 

After our commanders supposed that the battle was 
over for the day, the Confederates suddenly massed upon 
Sedgwick, routing two of his brigades, and taking and 
leading off about 4,000 prisoners, including the commander 
of one of them. General Seymour. For a time it seemed 
that our whole right wing, and with it our army itself, was 
likely to be routed, and this might have been the case, had 
not darkness put an end to the conflict. 

What added inconceivable horror to the scene on that 
field of blood, was the fact that while the wounded and 



368 THE AMERICAN REBELLION 

dead of both armies, lay, like autumn leaves, scattered all 
throuo-h the Wilderness, the dry rubbish there at length 
took fire, and added suffocation and burning to the agony 
which those wounded sufferers were already enduring. 
War itself can hardly furnish a parallel to the spectacle 
then and there presented. 

In this battle, General Lee carried out to perfection 
his favourite and peculiar method of attack, massing his 
columns first upon one part of our line and then upon 
another, finding a weak point in this line and breaking 
through that, and, finally, suddenly rushing through any 
opening which might be discovered between any of our 
divisions or corps, and rolling up our line in both directions. 
Never was a battle fought on a field which afforded the 
assaulting parties better facilities for practising this system 
of tactics, than did this Wilderness, in which our army was 
so helplessly shut in, all of Lee's movements being concealed 
from our commanders, while his command of our entire front, 
together with our ignorance and his full knowledge of the 
grounds themselves, enabled him to strike when and where 
and in what form he pleased, and to render all his assaults 
a surprise. The Battle of the Wilderness was to our army, 
undeniably, Shiloh repeated, with this difference, that the 
former was a surprise from beginning to end. A recon- 
noissance the next day discovered that Lee, having en- 
trenched his whole front, awaited our attack, without showing 
any disposition to take the offensive himself In this state 
the day was spent. In the evening a council of war was 
held at the head-quarters of our Commander-in-Chief. It 
is affirmed by those who profess to know, that, in the judg- 
ment of most of the corps commanders present, our army 
had suffered such a defeat as rendered a retreat necessary. 
In the council nothing positive was determined on, at least 
avowedly so, and each General left carrying in his hand 
an order, not for a retreat, but for an advance out of the 
Wilderness in the direction of Spottsylvania Court House. 

Our loss in this terrible battle could not have been 
much, if any, less than 25,000 men. General Meade admit- 
ting a loss of quite 20,000, exclusive of the losses in Burn- 
side's corps, which could not have been much less than 
5,000. The Confederates admit a loss of 7,000, which is 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 369 

probably not far from the truth. We have great occa- 
sion for thankfulness that a campaign conducted upon 
such a false principle, and in such a recklessly careless and 
presumptuous manner, cost us no heavier disaster. Of 
Grant's plan of the campaign, and especially of the march 
through the Wilderness, we may safely challenge every 
military critic on earth to designate a single feature or 
circumstance demanding commendation, a single feature 
or circumstance that was not in flagrant and presumptuous 
and most stupid violation of all the known and universally 
acknowledged principles of strategy. As thus far developed 
and conducted, this is about the only campaign known in 
history of which something cannot be said in its justifi- 
cation, but must, in strict justice, be pronounced totally 
wrong, and most flagrantly so, in every solitary particular. 
Impartial history has but one single apology to make for the 
horrid slaughter of those thousands of brave men — the blank 
ignorance and stupidity of our Commander-in-Chief. 

In the movement out of the Wilderness, Warren took 
the lead, commencing his march at 9 p.m., a body of 
cavalry moving in advance. On his way, his march was 
impeded by obstructions of the road and a cavalry fight. 
As he emerged from the Wilderness at a place called 
Alsop's Farm, he found himself anticipated by Longstreet, 
who had drawn up his line behind the small river Ny, and 
had placed his guns upon a ridge so as to sweep our 
columns as they passed After a mutual cannonade, 
Warren advanced Robinson's division to the assault. Our 
forces being outnumbered, Robinson was driven back, and 
was himself severely wounded. Later in the day. May 8th, 
a portion of the 6th corps having come up, the assault was 
resumed with success, and the advance was renewed. 

The Battle at Spottsyivania Court House. 

The next day our army emerged from the Wilderness, 
and drew up its lines in front of Spottsyivania Court 
House, the Confederate fortifications then being occupied 
by Generals Hill and Ewell, General Lee moving upon the 
cord, while our army moved upon the circle, of an arc, he 
having anticipated our advance. At our first formation, 
Hancock took position on our right, Warren in the centre, 

24 



370 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

and Sedgwick on the left. While In the act of placing- 
his guns, Sedgwick was struck in the face by the bullet of. 
a sharpshooter, and instantly fell dead ; General H. G. 
Wright succeeding him in the command of the 6th corps. 
We should bear in mind here, that our army drew up in 
front of formidable batteries which had all been prepared 
beforehand and sodded for preservation. When Burnside 
came into position on our left, two divisions, Barlow's and 
Gibbon's, — our batteries having previously opened fire, — 
charged upon the rifle-pits in front of the 2nd and 5th 
corps. This brought on a general engagement, in which 
various attempts were made to dislodge the enemy, but 
with no decisive success anywhere. Our loss in the battle 
of this day, May gth, was severe, — that of the enemy in his 
rifle-pits, and behind his batteries, being, of course, com- 
paratively small. 

The following despatch from General Grant to the War 
Department is explicable but upon the hypothesis that he 
was ignorant of the facts of the case, or paid no respect to 
them : — 

** Head-quarters in the Field, 

May nth, 1867, 8 a.m. 

" We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy 
fighting. The result, to this time, is very much in our 
favour. Our losses have been heavy, as well as those of 
the enemy. I think the loss of the enemy must have been 
greater. 

" We have taken over 5,000 prisoners by battle, whilst 
he has taken from us but few except stragglers. 

** I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all 
summer. 

'* U. S. Grant, Lieutenant- General 
Commanding the Armies of the United States.** 

Near the close of the battle of the second day in the 
Wilderness, the enemy captured, at one time, about 4,000 
prisoners, — all our missing during the battle being about 
7,000, as officially reported. Had the loss of the enemy 
been **much greater" than ours, as General Grant affirms 
it "must have been," General Lee would, in fact, have been 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 37 1 

without an army of any account. He had at this time, as 
we shall see, an army sufficiently strong to defeat General 
Grant at this place, at North Anna, at Cold Harbour, at 
Petersburg, Weldon Railroad, and other places, and hold 
him stationary at Petersburg until the spring of 1865. 
About the line to which he refers in his famous utterance, 
the historical critic may properly ask whether our Com- 
mander-in-Chief, in that utterance, referred to the line 
which he did pursue, namely, the outer line of an arc 
extending round from Culpepper to Petersburg. If this 
is the line referred to, the utterance is to the perpetual 
discredit of its author. If the line referred to is the direct 
one from Culpepper to Richmond, then General Grant 
fought but a single battle, his first, on that line. The 
prudence of giving forth such an utterance at all may 
well be questioned, as it could not have been concealed 
from the enemy, and revealed to him the fixed plan of 
our commander. 

May nth was spent in preparation for the great battle 
which was to be fought the next day. At midnight, Han- 
cock moved from our extreme right and took post between 
Burnside on our left, and Sedgwick's corps, now com- 
manded by Wright, Warren occupying our right opposite 
to Hill, who occupied the extreme left of the enemy's line, 
Ewell being in their centre, and Longstreet occupying their 
extreme right. The Confederate line conformed to two 
sides of a triangle, the centre and point of which, con- 
sisting of a mass of earthworks, which were occupied by a 
portion of Ewell' s corps, the division of General Johnson. 
Under cover of a dense fog, which had succeeded the 
heavy rain of the previous afternoon, Hancock the next 
morning moved, in two lines, four divisions of his corps, 
Barlow's and Birney's, and Gibbon's and Mott's, directly 
upon the salient angle of earthworks referred to. The 
enemy, as we were in the Wilderness, was taken by sur- 
prise. The two front divisions, those of Barlow and 
Birney, rushed over those works, and captured Johnson, 
and Brigadier- General G. H. Stewart, with about 3,000 
prisoners, and thirty guns, — Lee himself barely escaping 
being taken prisoner. This signal advantage induced a 
simultaneous advance of our entire line. At all points, 



372 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the dreadful charges made were unsuccessful, and Han- 
cock, though strongly reinforced, was unable to advance, 
as was hoped, beyond the position he had gained. After 
repelling five desperate charges which Lee made to recover 
his lost ground, Hancock retired, getting off but twenty 
of the guns he had captured, — after Lee had ceased 
his attacks, and had fortified and held a line in front of 
the position he had lost. 

From May 12th to May i8th was spent in endeavours 
to find some weak point in the enemy's line ; but all to no 
purpose. On this day, four divisions, as at the first, — to 
wit. Gibbon's and Barlow's, supported by those of Birney 
and Tyler, — were pushed upon the Confederate defences 
near those where Hancock's attack had been made. The 
assault was, of course, repulsed with heavy loss. On the 
afternoon of the next day, General Lee, under the impres- 
sion that our army was retiring in the direction of its 
left flank, made an assault upon our right, now weakened 
by the movement referred to. This attack, by the aid of 
the 2nd and 5th corps, was repulsed, and the next night, 
May 20-21, our army resumed its march. 

Our losses up to this time, on this fatal march, 
amounted, according to General Meade's official report, 
to 39,791 men. This does not include the losses of Burn- 
side in the Battle of the Wilderness, nor those of General 
Butler at and near Bermuda Hundred, nor the losses of 
our cavalry in their various raids. Putting all these 
together, they constituting parts of one campaign, and our 
losses during the fourteen days from May 6th, when the 
Battle of the Wilderness commenced, to May 20th, when 
that at Spottsylvania Court House ended, amounted to 
somewhat more than 50,000 men. From the circum- 
stances in which these battles were fought, and from the 
known strength of Lee's army after this period, as well as 
from the Confederate reports, we are bound to conclude 
that the losses of the enemy did not amount to much, if 
any, more than one-fifth of ours. 

Sheridan's Raid. 

As our army emerged from the Wilderness, what we 
have referred to as a peculiarity of this war, the main part 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 373 

of our cavalry was sent off, under General Sheridan, on 
a raid in the direction of Richmond, — a raid in which con- 
siderable damage was done to railroads, bridges, and 
depots ; and in a fight with Stuart and his cavalry, this 
famous cavalry commander and General Gordon were 
mortally wounded, the Confederate cavalry driven off, 
and the road to Richmond left open. We were assured 
by a Confederate officer who was in the city at the time, 
that it was defenceless, and might have been captured, 
had Sheridan assaulted it with the entire force under his 
command. Custer, with a smgle division, made an assault 
upon the outer defences, captured a hundred prisoners, and 
was then repulsed. Sheridan, however, with his corps 
united, crossed the Chickahominy, and moving up by the 
White House, rejoined our army. 

Movement to North Anna. 

The next movement of our army, by its left flank, was 
by a circuitous and difficult detour eastward, around to the 
point where the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad 
crosses the North Anna River. To this point, our move- 
ment being readily discoverable from the high position 
held by General Lee, the Confederate army was, by the 
direct and excellent road from Spottsylvania to that point, 
moved at easy marches. When our army arrived at its 
objective point, it found its old and terrible antagonist 
in an admirable position on the south side of the river, 
and there fully prepared to question our right to move 
another step in that direction towards the Confederate 
capital. In his attempt to advance upon the enemy's 
position. General Grant soon got our army into as 
complete and ridiculous a limbo as can be imagined. As 
the river approaches the Confederate position, it deflects 
from its eastern to a south-eastern direction. After 
running in this direction for about a mile, it turns to the 
north-east, and, running in this direction about a mile and a 
half, turns again in a south-eastern direction. The river 
thus forms curves like two oxbows, with the corners of 
each widely extended, — the point of the first nearly touch- 
ing the Confederate centre, the south side of the penin- 
sula formed by the other being covered by their right 



374 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

wing. His left wing- was formed on a road running a 
little west of south. At this time, also, Lee was rein- 
forced by the corps of Breckinridge, who had defeated Sigel 
in the valley of the Shenandoah. In his endeavour to get 
within striking distance of his antagonist, Grant passed 
Warren's and Wright's corps, and a division of Burnside's, 
over the river in front of the Confederate left, while the 
remainder of Burnside's corps and the right of that of 
Hancock were located within the oxbow first described, 
and in front of the Confederate centre. The remainder of 
Hancock's corps was formed over the river, and within 
the other oxbow, and in front of the Confederate right 
wing. Thus our army was divided into three parts, 
separated from each other by the river, and so separated 
that neither could help the other in case of a disaster. 
The Confederate army, on the other hand, was not only in 
a strong and fortified position, but was so situated that it 
could, in its entireness, act as a unity, and concentrate 
upon either of our wings as it chose. The river, which 
cut and separated our army into three parts, it should be 
borne in mind, is fordable only at different points, and 
barely fordable at these, while its banks are high and rocky. 
The formation of General Lee's army very much re- 
sembled ours at Gettysburg, the wings being thrown back, 
the right being protected from being flanked by marshes, 
and the left by Little river, while in the centre all advance 
on the part of Burnside was barred most effectually by the 
river with its rapid current and steep banks. The nature 
of the ground, also, presented the greatest facilities for 
mutual support, and concurrent action on the part of every 
portion of Lee's army with every other. The position of our 
army, when the intended crossings were made, and that 
with very little loss, — resembled that of General Lee at the 
same place, with this -difference, that the parts into which 
our army was divided could not support one another, and 
in case of disaster on the part of either wing, a retreat 
was impossible. When our line was formed, and Burnside 
attempted a crossing in his front, the attempt was repelled 
with heavy loss ; and when Warren sent a division down 
the south side of the river, that division was at once 
assailed with crushing force, and with much difficulty 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 375 

saved from being wholly annihilated or captured. The 
limbo into which our army had been so stupidly and 
presumptuously led, became at length so palpable as to 
command the regard of even our Commander-in-Chief. 
On the evening of May 26th a retreat was accordingly 
ordered, and by the next morning our army was in safety 
on the north side of the river. In this affair our loss is 
reported as amounting in all to 1,607 nien. 

Movement to Cold Harbour, and battle at that place. 

Falling back to some distance, General Grant moved 
a considerable march to the east, and then faced south 
again. In the progress of this march, our army crossed the 
Pamunkey river, and came upon or approached the ground 
occupied by the portion of McClellan's army which lay 
north of the Chickahominy two years previous. There, in 
front of a village called Cold Harbour, General Grant 
found himself confronted by General Lee, in a strong and 
fortified position, about a mile north of another small 
place called New Cold Harbour, and of another place 
called Gaine's Mill, where the battle which goes by that 
name was fought before McClellan's retreat to Harrison's 
Landing. 

Our line, now strengthened by 10,000 men sent round 
from General Butler, was thus constituted : Hancock 
was on the left ; Wright first, and then Smith — from 
Butler's command — in the centre ; next Warren, with Burn- 
side on his right and rear. In gaining this position, an 
attempt was made on our left to force our way across the 
Chickahominy. This attempt, which brought on a severe 
conflict, failed with the loss of quite 2,000 men on our 
side, we capturing from the enemy about 600 prisoners. 
Nothing, in the judgment of General Grant, remained but a 
simultaneous advance of our whole line directly upon that 
of the enemy, we moving up in open and helpless exposure 
upon rifle-pits and breastworks behind which the Confede- 
rates, in quiet and conscious security, waited our presump- 
tuous approach. When General Rawlins, Grant's chief of 
staff", saw the advance, he cried out in blasphemous horror 
at the spectacle. At about sunrise the advance was made, 
nak« d infantry helplessly exposed, in circumstances where 



376 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

nothing but ineffable stupidity could expect success, — 
helplessly exposed, to be slaughtered by every engine of 
destruction which military science has invented. The 
result could not have been otherwise than it was. Nowhere 
was a permanent advantage gained. Everywhere, on the 
other hand, our ranks, as they came within range of the 
enemy's fire, were swept away by a desolating tempest 
of death missiles. In twenty minutes after the first shot 
was fired, our columns were seen flying back in utter con- 
fusion, leaving behind them more than 10,000 of their 
comrades dead, weltering in their gore, or prisoners in 
the hands of the enemy, the Confederate loss being less 
than 1,000 men. Some hours later, that stupidity might 
reach its consummation, and make itself fully manifest 
to the world, — some hours later, we say, when our ranks 
were re-formed, every corps commander received an abso- 
lute order to renew the assault immediately, and that in 
the exact form in which the first had been made. To this 
mad and stupid order, the army unanimously and abso- 
lutely refused obedience, every portion of our line remain- 
ing stationary. 

Our loss on this bloody field and vicinity, amounted, 
as officially reported, to 13,153 men, that of the Confede- 
rates being about 1,000. We fully believe that the battle 
of Cold Harbour, except in the campaigns of General 
Grant, has no parallel in history. Let the reader conceive 
of an army of nearly, or quite, 100,000 infantry, drawn up 
in a line of battle of from three to four miles in extent, 
and standing there in front of a line of batteries of cor- 
responding length — batteries bristling with all the enginery 
of death which the science of modern warfare has ever 
known, and behind which more than 50,000 veteran troops 
are waiting in quiet security the approach of our death- 
devoted line. Let the reader now conceive that, before a 
cannon has been fired from our position to disturb the 
enemy in his, that line of infantry is pushed up within the 
range of fire of all these batteries, and of those 50,000 sharp- 
shooters, that as soon as our line can be re-formed, after 
it has recoiled and fled in disorder from the deadly tem- 
pest to which it was subject, it receives an absolute order 
to move up a second time, and be slaughtered as it had 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 377 

been before. We affirm, without fear of contradiction from 
any well-informed and candid mind, that such orders could 
have originated but from a blind and dog-ged stupidity of 
which the history of war furnishes no parallel. 

Movement across yames River to Petersburg. 

General Grant had now tried In vain, and that with the 
sacrifice of upwards of 50,000 men, to find, between Cul- 
pepper and James river, some line on which he could 
advance his army to Richmond. To a mind as blank as 
his, but one alternative remained, namely, to seek a road 
to the Confederate capital, south of that river, — that is, 
via Petersburg. He accordingly passed his army over the 
James, and advanced upon the city last named. From 
the first, a fatality seemed to attend the approach of our 
army to this city. The policy of our commander was to 
capture the city before Lee could arrive to defend it. 
General Smith, who with his corps had been returned by 
water to Butler, was sent promptly forward to seize the 
place. When he approached the city, and found it 
wholly undefended, he, as Meade did when Lee's whole 
army was within his grasp, hesitated and delayed until 
the Confederate army began to arrive. When Hancock 
with his corps arrived, and put all his forces at Smith's 
disposal, the weak man still hesitated and delayed, until 
Lee's veterans came up, and Petersburg was rendered 
impregnable. At length — Lee, as usual, being before us — 
our army came up in force; and now, June i6th, an oppor- 
tunity presented itself to General Grant to repeat, in the 
same form, the tragedy of Cold Harbour, Spottsylvania, 
and other places, — that is. In three successive assaults, 
in which, in all but the last, lines of naked infantry were 
stupidly pushed up in front of impregnable and destructive 
batteries, to lose, nearly or quite, 20,000 more brave men. 
It is useless to detail the form in which such senseless and 
madly presumptuous assaults were made. Cold Harbour 
being the proper example of the rest. In the first, before 
Petersburg, we lost 9,665 men. In the second 5,316, and 
in the last 4,008, Independ ent of 868 in the trenches. The 
last of these assaults was on this wise. General Burnslde 
had run a mine under the central fort of the Confederate 



378 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

line, and had all arrangements perfected for the assault, 
as soon as the mine should be sprung. Immediately 
before the time for the explosion and the assault, General 
Meade assumed the authority to change the whole pro- 
gramme. At 4.30 a.m. the mine was sprung, and the 
fort, with its 300 occupants, was lifted 200 feet into the 
air, and a deep chasm was left in its place. At the same 
moment our batteries opened all along the line in the 
vicinity of the explosion. In consequence of the disar- 
rangement referred to, the assault was delayed, or rendered 
ineffective, for quite two hours, during which time the 
enemy fully recovered his lost self-possession, and rushed 
to the defence of his broken line. The result was, that 
our attacking columns were driven back and huddled to- 
gether in that chasm, where they were slaughtered as the 
Confederates willed. In this abortive effort we lost quite 
4,400 men, the entire loss of the enemy being less than 
1 ,000. 

General Grant, fully convinced at last that Petersburg 
could not be captured by an assault in front, attempted to 
turn the enemy's right by a flank movement in the direc- 
tion of Weldon Railroad. In the various conflicts in this 
direction, we lost about 14,000 more men. At length, all 
efforts in that direction were abandoned, and our whole 
army, in the latter part of October, returned to its entrench- 
ments before the city. 

Our arjuy as distributed in front of Petersburg^ and our 
prior losses. 

To understand the situation of our army from the 
middle of June 1864, when it crossed James river, to the 
last of March 1865, when the great movement which led 
to General Lee's surrender was made, we must take into 
account the following facts. Our line of defences ex- 
tended from the south front of. Petersburg north to James 
river, and then a corresponding distance north of that 
river, making an almost straight line of fortifications from 
twenty to thirty miles in extent. This position General 
Grant had gained by months of tedious marching and 
terrible fighting, in which he had, directly under his own 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 379 

eye, as furnished by one of his staff to the author of 
"Grant and his Campaigns," lost the appalling sum of 
88,387 men. If we add to these what is not therein 
included, namely, the losses in Burnside's corps before it 
was incorporated with the Army of the Potomac, in the 
various cavalry raids, and in the Army of the James, the 
amount will far exceed 100,000 men, that of the Confede- 
rates being not over one-third, if they were one-fourth, of 
that number. 

What the country lost and gained by this campaign. 

Let us stop for a moment and inquire what we have 
lost and gained by this enormous and appalling sacrifice 
of men and treasure. When the Army of the Potomac 
lay at Culpepper, we held full command of all Eastern, 
Central, and Northern Virginia. Our national capital, and 
the Shenandoah Valley, were also so perfectly protected, 
that all our forces at the places named, in the Peninsula, 
in the Valley, and in Washington, those necessary for 
mere garrison duty excepted, could have been effectively 
employed for a combined movement upon General Lee 
and the Confederate capital. When our army sat down 
before Petersburg, we had surrendered all Central Virginia, 
and had fully exposed the national capital, the valley re- 
ferred to. Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. 
All the railroads south of the Rappahannock and east of 
Richmond were also surrendered ; while all north of that 
river, with their bridges, were constantly exposed to be 
broken up. Just as the great harvest was coming on, the 
largest and richest portion of the great State of Virginia 
was given up to be drawn upon for the support of the 
Confederate army. Before our army moved, the Govern- 
ment had in its own hands the chief means of transport 
for provisions and supplies. In its new and Insulated 
position, these provisions and supplies had to be conveyed, 
at the most enormous expense, by vessels hired of specu- 
lators at their own prices. In consequence of the new 
position of our army, also, we were necessitated to keep two 
additional ones of large magnitude for mere defence — one 
for the protection of Washington, and the other to defend 



380 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the Shenandoali Valley, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. 
But this was not the worst of the case. These three 
great armies — that at Petersburg, that at Washington, 
and that in the Shenandoah Valley — were so located that 
co-operative action between them was impossible, while 
neither could by itself do any effective service whatever. 
The two last-named could, of course, do nothing but stand 
on the defensive. How was it with that immediately 
under Grant ? There was nothing in its rear to be done. 
In front it was everywhere stopped by impregnable fortifi- 
cations. All attempts to move south had been defeated, 
and to move north was to retreat. Thus all these three 
armies were perfectly paralyzed for any offensive service — 
that under Grant being as completely " bottled up " and 
corked up as was possible. It is impossible to con- 
ceive armies in a more helpless condition than were those 
under consideration, while all General Lee's communica- 
tions were most open and secure. The worst feature of 
Grant's position at Petersburg yet remains to be stated. 
When he located one part of his army on the south and 
the other on the north side of the James river, three 
powerful ironclads, with other war vessels, were in pro- 
cess of construction at Richmond. January 23rd, 1865, 
when our army was divided as stated, when our war 
vessels were, with very few exceptions at distant stations, 
and when the portion of our army that lay before 
Petersburg, had a supply of provisions but for a very 
short time, the Confederate fleet, consisting of three iron- 
clads — the Virghiia, Fredericksburg, and RicJwiond, five 
wooden steamers, and three torpedo boats, dropped down 
the river in the darkness of night. At midnight they 
passed Fort Brady, and in returning its fire disabled one 
of its lOO-pounders. They then broke the chain in front 
of the obstructions placed in the river by General Butler 
at the lower end of Dutch Gap. The Fredericksburg 
passed through ; the Virgiriia, Richnond, and another 
vessel called Dreivry, fortunately for us, grounded. The 
vessel last named was blown up ; and the Virginia, before 
it could be got off, was fatally injured by a 300-pound 
bolt from one of our monitors. This rendered the accom- 
plishment of the Confederate plan impossible, and the 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 38 1 

remainder of the fleet returned to Richmond. Had the 
plan under consideration been successful, and our army, 
as a consequence, inseparably divided, General Lee with 
his whole army — all preparations being made for the 
purpose — would have fallen upon General Grant's left 
wing with the intent of rolling it up upon the centre 
and right of our divided forces, and thus capturing them. 
If this assault should not succeed, another part of his 
plan was to stop all supply of provisions, and thus compel 
Grant's surrender. The conquest of our army north of 
the river would then have been only a question of time. 
From all this peril that army was delivered by this pro- 
vidential accident, the grounding of those vessels. The 
stupid presumption involved in selecting a position so 
insulated, and which so palpably exposed our army to 
such perils, is too obvious to require further comment. 
The last result that we notice of Grant's leaving Culpepper 
as he did, and conducting the campaign as he did, is the 
additional loss of between 40,000 and 50,000 men in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah and in Northern Virginia. 
General Grant's conduct of his Virginia campaign un- 
deniably cost us the loss of nearly or quite 150,000 men, 
an army more than twice as large as General Lee com- 
manded at the opening of that campaign — a campaign 
protracted through quite eleven months of stupid fight- 
ing and demoralizing idleness, attended by an enormous 
expense of treasure to the nation. All this occurred 
when no strategist of ordinary capacity would, with 
Grant's resources when he lay at Culpepper, have asked 
more than two months to have finished up the campaign 
in Virginia and the Carolinas, and would readily have 
accomplished all this with a loss of less than 20,000 men. 
The history of all wars, since gunpowder was invented, 
absolutely verifies these statements. A view hereafter to 
be presented of General Grant's actual advantages to have 
brought the war to a speedy termination, during all the 
nine months, or nearly, that he lay in idleness before 
Petersburg, will evince, if possible, beyond any facts we 
have yet presented, his utter ignorance of the whole 
science and art of war, and of ever ordinary common 
sense in its conduct. 



382 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

A general and specific view of General Granf s plan of the 
entire campaign. 

The plan of General Grant, as far as he had any, — a 
plan which Mr. Greeley calls '* General Grant's compre- 
hensive plan of campaign,*' but which, as we shall see, in 
the mind of its originator really comprehended nothing, 
this plan involved concentrative and co-operative move- 
ments on a larger scale and over a wider extent of 
country than we have yet indicated. Simultaneously with 
his own movement through the Wilderness, and Butler's 
advance via Bermuda' Hundred, General Sigel was 
required to move up the Shenandoah, and General Crook 
up the Kanawha ; the Generals last named being directed 
to meet and unite in the vicinity of Stanton and Lynch- 
burg. The fundamental vice of the plan was this, namely, 
that while the central force at Culpepper was much larger 
than was needful in a proper conduct of the campaign, all 
the others were too contemptibly small and feeble to 
render any but abortive services in any direction. While 
General Butler was ordered to move, via Bermuda 
Hundred, with 20,000, Sigel was required to move up 
the Shenandoah with 10,000, and Crook up the Kanawha 
with 6,000 men. In connection with the fatally tragic 
march of the Grand Army through the Wilderness, the 
simultaneous movement of the three other feeble bodies 
could not have failed to render the whole campaign an 
abortive and calamitous one. A more vicious plan for 
the conduct of a great campaign, we may safely defy 
human stupidity, or ingenuity, to invent than was the 
one under consideration. Let us suppose that before any 
movement at all had been made, Butler, as was originally 
intended, had been reinforced by Burnside's corps of 
about 40,000 men, and also by the two corps subsequently 
brought up from the Carolinas, and that the forces undei 
Sigel and Crook had been united in the Shenandoah, 
and raised to an army 50,000 strong by reinforcements 
sent out from Washington, which might readily and 
safely have been done. We should then have had a 
grand central force at Culpepper of upwards of 180,000 
strong. We should have had an army in the vicinity of 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 383 

Fortress Monroe of about 80,000, and another in the 
Shenandoah of 50,000 men. Suppose now that the 
campaign had opened in the following manner. While 
Grant, with the central force, had moved directly upon the 
Confederate position of Orange Court House, Butler had 
moved his army to Bermuda Hundred, and Sigel had, by 
forced marches, moved up the Shenandoah, and seized 
Stanton and Lynchburg. Such a plan for the conduct of 
the campaign was perfectly practicable, most obviously 
demanded by the circumstances, and was so palpably 
suggested by existing facts, that any commander of 
ordinary capacity would have apprehended and adopted 
it. The certain result is undeniable. In six weeks, or 
two months at the furthest, Lee's army, with Richmond, 
would have been captured, and the campaign closed up in 
Virginia and the Carolinas. All this would have been 
accomplished with a loss of less than 20,000 instead of 
150,000 men, and a protraction of the campaign for 
nearly a year. 

Let us now consider some of the further results of this 
stupidly devised and presumptuously and awkwardly 
executed campaign. On May 15th, General Breckinridge 
assaulted and routed Sigel' s army, we losing 700 men, 
six guns, 1,000 small-arms, our hospitals, and part of our 
train. Having thus removed all fear of an advance of 
Sigel' s force up the valley, Breckinridge hastened, as we 
have seen, to the aid of General Lee against General 
Grant. 

Still more calamitous was the advance of General 
Crook. Having divided his forces, they were at length 
cut to pieces in detail, and dispersed. Thus on both ot 
the wings of our army, — that is, on the part of Butler on 
the one hand, and Sigel and Crook on the other, — less than 
nothing was achieved, and the campaign, in all its move- 
ments, became a great national calamity. 

General Sigel was promptly superseded by General 
Hunter, and our forces in the Shenandoah were consider- 
ably strengthened. General Hunter accordingly made an 
advance, and at Piedmont defeated General Jones, the 
latter losing his life. In this battle our army captured 
some 1,500 prisoners, three guns, and 3,000 small-arms. 



384 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Moving on to Stanton, General Hunter was there rein- 
forced by Generals Averill and Crook, with what was left 
of his men. and our commander found himself at the head 
of an army quite 20,000 strong. General Hunter now 
made a forced march for Lynchburg, hoping to be able to 
capture the place before it could be relieved by reinforce- 
ments sent up from Richmond. In this hope he was 
sadly disappointed. General Lee, having rendered Peters- 
burg secure, sent Early, with a large portion of Ewell's 
corps, for the relief of the place, which was hardly second 
in importance to Richmond itself. Early, with most of 
his forces, arrived before Hunter did, and thus placed the 
latter in a most precarious condition. With his provisions 
quite exhausted, and his ammunition fast failing, nothing 
remained for our commander but a precipitous retreat. 
As a return by the way he came was too hazardous, our 
army moved on the railroad west to Solun, where pursuit 
was suspended. From thence General Hunter moved by 
a circuitous route down the Kanawha, and around to 
Grafton, his army suffering beyond conception from want 
of provisions. We have heard soldiers say that they 
were often glad to gather up the kernels of corn which 
the horses dropped from their mouths while feeding, and 
with these, having washed the same, allay the gnawings 
of hunger. 

By this absence of our army, the Shenandoah, Northern 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were left defence- 
less, an advantage to the enemy which such a General as 
Early was certain to improve. Moving rapidly down the 
Shenandoah, he captured from Sigel, who retreated to 
Maryland Heights, a large amount of stores, crossed the 
Potomac at Williamsport, and having done much damage 
to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, invaded the free 
Union States above noticed. The main object of this 
invasion was to capture horses, cattle, provisions, and 
goods for the supply of the Confederate army. Hence, 
they scoured the country in all directions for the objects 
designated. The invasion was everywhere so wisely 
masked by cavalry, that the amount of Early's command 
was immensely exaggerated, and a panic in all directions 
spread among the people, — the Government, in fear of 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 385 

Washington and Baltimore, calling upon the States of 
Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, for militia 
to repel the invaders. During this invasion, but one 
battle of any importance was fought, and that was near 
Frederick in Maryland. In this battle a few thousand 
men under General Wallace were defeated in a sanguinary 
fight, we losing about 2,000 men, and the Confederates 
about one-third that number. In a cavalry raid into the 
interior of Pennsylvania, villages and farmhouses were 
plundered, and two-thirds of the city of Chambersburg 
was burned to the ground, because the inhabitants failed 
to furnish in time ^100,000 in gold, or ^500,000 in paper 
money. Early, at length, moved south ; and approaching 
within a few miles of Washington, recrossed the Potomac, 
with his cavalry remounted, with 2,000 to 3,000 spare 
horses, upwards of 5,000 cattle, and an immense amount 
of provisions and goods which he had gathered up. Soon 
after his return to Virginia, he encountered and defeated 
General Crook near Martinsburg, — the latter, with our 
defeated forces, having imprudently moved out from 
Harper's Ferry. In this affair, the Confederate loss being 
very small, we lost upwards of 1,200 men, with Colonel 
Mulligan killed, the brave defender of Lexington, in 
Missouri, in 186 1. In one of these cavalry raids. General 
Averil, after pursuing the raiders up one branch of the 
Potomac, captured upwards of 500 prisoners, with their 
guns and waggons, with a loss of but fifty men on our 
side. Thus ended the last invasion of Pennsylvania and 
Maryland. 

At length. General Hunter having returned from his 
long detour, was superseded by General Sheridan, who soon 
found himself at the head of an army quite 30,000 strong. 
After completing the necessary organization of his forces, 
Sheridan took the field, and in a pitched battle of great 
severity on the banks of Opequan Creek, covering Win- 
chester, defeated Early, September i6th, with the loss of 
about 3,000 men on each side. The Confederates now 
abandoned the valley, pursued in their retreat by our 
forces, who captured near Fisher's Hill 1,100 prisoners, 
sixteen guns, and seventy-five waggons, etc. Sheridan, 
in passing up and down the valley, obeyed to the letter 

25 



386 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

a command which he had received from General Grant, 
namely, — '* In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, where 
it is expected you will have to go first or last, it is desir- 
able," says Grant, in the order referred to, " that nothing 
should be left to invite the enemy to returii. Take all pro- 
visions, forage, and stock wanted for your command: such 
as cannot be secured, destroy." We must bear in mind 
here, that among the people upon whom this brutally 
savage order was executed with most brutally savage 
ferocity, were not a few Union men who were then fight- 
ing in the Union army, while more were Quakers and 
Dunkers, who from conscientious regard to what they held 
to be moral and religious obligations, took no part in the 
war whatever. Of the manner in which he executed this 
■order. General Sheridan (October 7th, 1864, 9 p.m.) thus 
reports to Lieutenant General U. S. Grant: — 

" I commenced moving back from Port Republic, 
Mount Crawford, Bridgewater, and Harrisonburg, yester- 
day morning. 

" The grain and forage in advance of these points had 
previously been destroyed. 

" In moving back to this point " (Woodstock, Va.), " the 
whole country from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain 
has been made untenable to the Rebel army. I have 
destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat and hay and 
farming implements, over seventy mills filled with flour and 
wheat, have driven in front of the army over 4,000 head of 
stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less 
than 3,000 sheep. This destruction embraces the Luray 
Valley and Little Fort valley, as well as the main Valley. 

" A large number of horses have been obtained, a 
proper estimate of which I cannot now make. 

" Lieut. John R Meigs, my engineer officer, was 
murdered beyond Harrisonburg, near Dayton. For this 
atrocious act, all the houses within an area of five miles 
were burned." 

We must bear in mind, that when the above order 
was given and executed, all the Confederate forces that 
could have been concentrated for the defence of Virginia, 
and the invasion of Pennsylvania and Maryland, did not 
amount to over 70,000, while General Grant had under his 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 387 

control upwards of 1,000,000 men. At any period, our 
Commander-in-Chief could have assembled an army — to 
protect ours cooped up in the Peninsula, to render secure 
our national capital, and to preserve our territory from 
invasion — outnumbering- all the Confederate forces that 
could have been concentrated in the State of Virginia, 
as more than six to one. Yet, ** in the deep recesses of 
a mind capable of such things," — ** the deep recesses " of 
the mind of our Commander-in-Chief — the only means by 
which the States of Pennsylvania and Maryland could be 
rendered safe from another invasion by the great army of 
General Lee, was, after the example of Hyder Ali in India, 
to " place perpetual desolations " between those States and 
the 70,000 men referred to. Still furthur, as our com- 
mander "revolved in the deep recesses of his mind" the 
widespread desolations which his stupid order had so 
savagely consummated, he was not yet satisfied that these 
States were secure from Invasion. By his grave advice, 
that " surety might be rendered doubly sure," 100,000 
volunteers, enlisted for one hundred days, were armed and 
equipped, and brought forward, and the most of them 
added to the Army of the Potomac. All this was done for 
no offensive purposes whatever, but exclusively to save 
from capture our army before Petersburg and Richmond, 
to render secure our national capital, and prevent the 
States referred to being invaded by forces sent out from 
an army 70,000 strong, and having- upon its hands the 
defence of the Confederate capital and the great State of 
Virginia. 

Subsequent to the events above referred to, another 
quite famous battle occurred. Sheridan, supposing that 
the desolation he had created had rendered the condition 
of his army perfectly secure, had gone on a visit to Wash- 
*^gton ; and his Generals in command, deeming danger 
out of the question, had suspended all precaution. '* Our 
forces," says Mr. Greeley, " were encamped on three crests 
or ridges ; the Army of West Virginia (Crook's) in front ; 
the 19th corps (Emory's) half a mile behind it; the 6th 
corps (Wright's) to the right and rear of the 19th. 
Kitching's provisional division lay behind Crook's left; the 
cavalry under Forbut, on the right of the 6th. It is a fact. 



388 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

though no excuse, that they had no more apprehension 
of an attack from Early than from Canada." 

It was the known absence of Sheridan, and the equally 
known supposed security of his army, that Early took 
advantage of to attack it by surprise. Nor were measures 
for such an end ever more wisely and promptly adopted 
than by the Confederate General on this occasion. Sepa- 
rating his army into two bodies, so as to strike our right 
and left wings at the same moment, he made his approach, 
not by the main road, but over rough mountain passes, 
where his men had to hold on to bushes to preserve their 
standing, and twice to ford the Shenandoah. That no 
noise might be made, his soldiers were required to leave 
their canteens in camp, lest their striking against their 
guns should create an alarm among the Union forces. 
As the enemy drew near, a rustling as of the trampling 
of many feet in the underbrush was heard by our 
pickets, and the news sent to head-quarters. A good 
look-out was ordered, but no reconnoiterers were sent out. 
At one hour before dawn, both bodies of Early's com- 
mand were in their desired places, both our wings being 
flanked, while the muskets of many of our soldiers were 
unloaded, and all our men, with the exception of those on 
duty, were resting in deep slumber. As soon as the dawn- 
ing light revealed the distant hill-tops, volleys of musketry 
on our flanks and in our rear startled the sleepers. The 
next moment, with multitudinous yells peculiar to the Con- 
federate soldiery, Early's forces leaped into our trenches, 
and charged into our camps. In a few minutes after the 
first dawn. Crook's entire command was a mingled mass, 
flying they knew not whither. 

The 19th corps made a short and bloody resistance, but 
was soon driven back in confusion. The 6th, finding resist- 
ance vain, retreated in good order. The victory was with 
the Confederates, with the loss on our part of quite 1,200 
prisoners, our camps, defences, and twenty- four guns. Had 
Early's army been in a condition to follow up his advantage, 
our defeat would have been complete and most disastrous. 
His men, however, were too weary, hungry, and thirsty, and 
eager for plunder, to enable him to reap the full results of 
his easy victory. Hence the pursuit was not rapid, and 



CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL GRANT. 389 

our broken columns at length began to re-form behind 
Wright's unbroken ranks. 

At 10 a.m. Sheridan, who had slept at Winchester, on 
his return to his army, was, after his famous ride, at the 
front. Just at this time Wright had halted, and the pres- 
sure of Early had ceased to be severe. As soon as our 
broken forces could be rallied and re-formed, our army 
took the offensive, and the Confederates, in their turn, fled 
from the field, leaving in our hands quite as many prisoners 
as they had taken from us, and twenty- three of their own guns 
in addition to the twenty-four which we had previously lost, 
and then recovered. Such is the difference which the pre- 
sence or absence of a single individual often makes upon the 
battle-field. Our loss in this double battle was quite 3,000 
men, and that of the Confederates considerably larger. 
With this battle, the campaign in the Shenandoah, and 
until next spring throughout the sphere of the Army of 
the Potomac, ended. For about six months from this time, 
October i8th, " all was quiet on the Potomac," in the 
trenches before Petersburg and Richmond, in Washington, 
and in the States which had been three times invaded 
by the Confederate armies. This unheard-of quietude of 
more than 1,000,000 of armed men, the small portion under 
Sherman and Thomas, and under Pleasanton in Missouri, 
excepted, will be the subject of remark in future portions of 
this treatise. All that we need to say here is that all this 
needless and useless slaughter and desolation in connec- 
tion with the Army of the Shenandoah was wholly occa- 
sioned by General Grant's vicious plan, and more vicious 
conduct, of the campaign in Virginia in the year 1864. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 

The object of this history, as the reader is aware, is a 
pecuHar and special one— an exposition of the leading 
facts of this war from one single standpoint, its 7nilitary 
aspect. The object of the work is to subject each cam- 
paign to a most rigid and impartial criticism, that its 
excellences, errors, and blunders may be distinctly under- 
stood ; my fixed aim being to enable my countrymen to 
know the past as it was, to comprehend fully and truly the 
real merits and demerits of the commanders of our armies, 
and the character of the soldiery whom they led and so 
mercilessly slaughtered; and this as a means to a still 
higher end — that the errors and blunders of the past may 
never be repeated in future. We are conscious of no 
seul;iment in regard to General Sherman, or any other 
individual that ever held command in our armies, that 
would conceal or eclipse one of his excellences, or hide, 
diminish, or magnify in public estimation one of his 
defects, our object being criticism in that form which, 
in all future time, will stand the test of criticism. What 
General Sherman actually accomplished reveals him as a 
military man of whom our nation has no reason to be 
ashamed. While we freely admit and affirm this, we are 
ixlso most fully persuaded that there were errors in the 
plan of his compaigns, and blunders in their conduct, 
which no future commander should copy. Let us advance 
to a direct consideration of the subject before us. 

According to his own statements, he had at his dis- 
posal an available force amounting to upwards of 180,000 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 39 1 

men, all the forces In liis department amounting- to 
upwards of 340,000. The forces by which he was 
directly opposed, no well-informed individual estimates 
at over 55,000 men. When Generals Grant and Sherman 
were assigned to their respective commands, they met 
at Nashville, and passed in company together to Louis- 
ville. During this interval, the plan of their respec- 
tive campaigns was definitely settled. One fixed ele- 
ment of the plan was, as we have already stated, that 
both Generals should move at the same time, and that 
their campaigns should not be opened until the month of 
May. The openly avowed reason for this simultaneous 
movement was to prevent General Johnston dividing his 
little army of 55,000 men, and reinforcing General Lee, 
on the one hand, and General Lee dividing his small force 
of 70,000, and reinforcing General Johnston, on the other, 
and this when it was well known that these two little 
armies were from 600 to 1,000 miles distant from each 
other, and each commander of the same was confronted 
by forces quite three times larger than his own, and much 
more numerous than both the Confederate armies united. 
Here, undeniably, was *' a step from the sublime to the 
ridiculous." 

Neglected opporturiity. 

When General Sherman moved out. May 6th, from 
Chattanooga, what did he find in his immediate front? 
At Dalton, about thirty miles from the former place, at 
the junction of the railroads from Chattanooga and Knox- 
ville to Atlanta, he encountered General Johnston in a 
position strong in itself, and very strongly fortified. At 
Resaca, about fifteen miles farther on, upon the Oos- 
tenaula river, in a still stronger and more formidably 
fortified position, he encountered the Confederate army 
a second time. After the retreat of General Bragg, 
General Hooker, with only 10,000 men, captured Dalton, 
and would have held it but for the fact that he was posi- 
tively commanded to return to Chattanooga. From the 
latter part of November, 1863, to the 6th May, 1864, our 
army, quite ico.ooo strong, lay in perfect idleness at 
Chattanooga, allowing General Johnston to advance with 



392 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

his little army into our immediate presence, and there, on 
our known and predetermined route to Atlanta, raise up, 
at his leisure, the formidable fortifications above desig- 
nated, and that without the remotest attempt on our part 
to disturb his operations. What excuse, but the baldest 
ignorance of what is essential to the proper conduct of a 
great campaign, can be offered for such neglect ? Any- 
General well instructed in the science of war, and half 
awake to his duties as the commander of a great army, 
would, if he had determined to advance no farther until 
the May following, have promptly seized Dalton and 
Resaca both, and prepared the latter as his advanced 
depot of supplies. The location of this place upon the 
river designated rendered it most obviously the proper 
position for the purpose named, and for opening the 
spring campaign. A correspondent in our army in 
Western Virginia, when McClellan was in command there, 
made this statement, namely, " that the fixed policy of 
our commander seemed to be this, to suffer the enemy to 
approach as near to us as he chose, select his position, 
and at his leisure fortify it to his own full satisfaction. 
Then our commander would set his wits to work to dis- 
lodge the enemy." This seems to have been the equally 
fixed policy of our General in command at Chattanooga. 

The campaign as it should have been condicded. 

The advance of General Sherman from Chattanooga to 
Atlanta, the time spent in capturing the latter place in- 
cluded, occupied just four months, and those, the last three 
especially, the worst of the year, the three months of 
summer, and was attended, as we have already stated, 
with the loss of upwards of 40,000 men, almost as many 
as General Johnston had in his army. We now lay down 
this proposition, the validity of which we expect to render 
demonstrably evident, to wit, that this campaign ought not 
to have betn^ at thejarihest, of more thari four weeks^ continu- 
anccy a7id ought not^ by any means, to have been attended with 
the loss of 5,000 7nen on our part. History furnished any 
number of precedents from which our commander might 
have drawn a proper plan for the conduct of his campaign. 
Among these precedents, we specify but one, the famous 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 393 

march of the Duke of Wellington up the Ebro and over 
the mountains into the plains of Vittoria, where he gained 
that world-renowned victory over the French army under 
King Joseph. During the winter, while the Duke was 
making preparations for the intended campais^n, the 
French commanders, correctly divining his plan, and the 
line of his march, erected all along that line, at every 
defensible point, — and no line ever presented more posi- 
tions of this character than did this, — the French com- 
manders, we say, erected at every defensible point along 
that line a succession of the most formidable fortifications 
which military science could plan. The route before the 
English army was, to all appearance, an absolutely im- 
practicable one. Here was a route precisely similar to 
that which lay before General Sherman in his advance 
upon Atlanta. What did the English commander do in 
the circumstances in which he was placed ? He did not 
do as General Sherman afterwards did, — that is, advance 
his whole army directly upon those fortresses, and spend 
the whole spring and summer in capturing them one 
after the other, losing, in doing so, more than one-third 
of his army. The grand Duke, on the other hand, as 
soon as full preparation was made for his advance, sent 
forward his left wing under General Graham, and flanked 
each of those fortresses in succession, while with the re- 
mainder of his army he moved directly upon those 
strongholds. The result was, that each position in suc- 
cession was abandoned without firing a gun, — abandoned 
as soon as it was flanked by General Graham's advance. 
Wellington's army contemplated with utter amazement the 
strength of the successive fortifications which they entered 
and found empty in their unresisted advance. On all 
that march, " not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note," 
over a single officer or soldier fallen in battle in that army. 
The march was literally an uninterrupted and bloodless 
one, and the great conqueror of Napoleon brought his 
whole army intact over into the plains of Vittoria. Had 
General Sherman equal facilities for an equally uninter- 
rupted and bloodless advance for himself and his army 
from Chattanooga to Atlanta ? He had, as we will now 
proceed to demonstrate. Let us suppose that, of the 



394 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

effective force of more than 180,000 men under his 
command, he had reserved 70,000 at Chattanooga for 
the advance upon Atlanta, a force abundantly sufficient 
to act against 55,000. Having done this, we will suppose 
that he had located another army 60,000 strong under 
General Thomas at Decatur. This latter army would 
have been superior to Johnston's by 5,000, and the former 
by 15,000 men, so that each would have been safe from 
an effective assault from the enemy, we having still in 
reserve upwards of 50,000 men to guard our communi- 
cations, and to succour either army, if needful, ^ — a body 
abundantly sufficient for all such purposes. When all 
was in readiness to open the campaign, Thomas, we will 
suppose, had moved by forced marches directly for 
Atlanta, there having been nothing at the time in his 
way to impede his march, as the subsequent advance of 
Hood from Atlanta to Decatur, and then west of it, demon- 
strated. When Thomas had been about one week on his 
march, we will suppose, once more, that Sherman had 
moved directly upon Johnston at Dalton. How long 
would the latter, under such circumstances, have remained 
in those mountain passes to resist the advance of the 
former? The retreat of the Confederates back to Atlanta, 
we answer, would have been instantaneous, and Sher- 
man's march thither would have been as uninterrupted 
and bloodless as was Wellington's from Portugal to the 
plains of Vittoria. And when the Confederate army had 
emerged from those passes, and arrived at Atlanta, it 
would have found itself in an infinitely worse con- 
dition than was that of France when it was assailed by 
Wellington on those plains. Johnston would have found 
himself encircled by forces nearly three times as numerous 
as his own, and could not have kept the field for six weeks 
longer. There is no escaping these deductions. We 
affirm it before the nation and the world, that both Grant 
and Sherman ought to have finished up totally the cam- 
paigns before them, and terminated the war, in two months, 
at the farthest, after those campaigns were opened. Ever 
Dince we have considered what General Sherman did do, 
and contrasted that with what he might have done, we, as 
our most familiar acquaintances will testify, have affirmed 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 395 

that he was, at the time, either an unread commander, or 
that he was wholly destitute of capacity to plan an important 
campaign. 

The campaign as it was conducted. 

When we consider the conduct of the Atlanta cam- 
paign as executed by General Sherman, and that irre- 
spective of the plan of the same, we shall be constrained 
to award him no little praise, and that praise a grateful 
country should not withhold. The manner in which all 
General Johnston's strong, and more strongly fortified, 
positions were flanked, — and he was compelled to abandon 
each one of them in succession, — must command the 
admiration of every well-informed individual. The Con- 
federate prisoners of the lower order of rank and file 
were accustomed thus to speak to our soldiers upon the 
subject : " The you-uns don't treat the we-uns fair. When 
the we-uns draw up behind our fortifications, the you-uns, 
instead of coming right up and fighting the we-uns, as 
the you-uns should do, the you-uns go away round, and 
then come up and take the we-uns eend-wise like. That 
arn't fair." As examples of the manner in which those 
strongholds were flanked, we cite the two following from 
Mr. Greeley, our object being criticism, and not mere 
detail : — 

" The country between Chattanooga and Atlanta is 
different from, but even more difficult than, that which 
separates Washington from Richmond. Rugged moun- 
tains, deep, narrow rivers, thick primitive woods, with 
occasional villages, and more frequent clearings, or 
irregular patches of cultivation, all traversed by mainly 
narrow, ill-made roads, succeed each other for some forty 
miles ; then intervenes a like distance of comparatively 
open, facile country, traversed by two considerable rivers ; 
then another rugged, difficult region of mountains and 
passes reaches nearly to Chattahoochee, across which, eight 
miles distant, lies the new but important city of Atlanta — 
a focus of several railroads, having some 20,000 inhabit- 
ants, and then the seat of extensive manufactories of 
Confederate supplies. It had been well fortified early in 
1863. 



396 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

" Johnston's position at Dal ton was covered by an im- 
passable mountain known as Rocky-Face Ridge, down by 
the passage of Mill Creek called Buzzard's Roost Gap. 
The railroad traverses this pass, but our army could 
not, it being naturally very strong, and now thoroughly 
fortified. Hence, while Thomas menaced and feebly 
assailed it in front, McPherson flanked the enemy's left, 
moving down by Ship's Gap, Villanow, and Snake Creek 
Gap, to seize either Resaca or some point well in its 
rear, while Schofield should press on Johnston's right. 
In executing these orders, Thomas was compelled to 
bear more heavily on the Rebel front than he intended. 
Newton's division of Howard's 4th corps and Geary's of 
Hooker's (20th) corps, assaulting in earnest, and even 
carrying portions of the ridge ; whence they were soon 
repelled with loss. Meantime, McPherson had reached 
the front of Resaca, scarcely resisted; but he could not 
carry it, and dared not remain between it and Johnston's 
main body ; so he fell back to a strong position in Snake 
Creek Gap, which he could hold for some hours against all 
gainsayers. Sherman now, leaving Howard's corps and 
some cavalry to threaten Dalton in front, moved the 
rest of his forces rapidly in the track of Schofield, and 
through Snake Creek Gap, which compelled Johnston to 
evacuate his stronghold, and fall back rapidly to Resaca ; 
advancing in force against which, Kilpatrick, fighting the 
enemy's cavalry, was disabled. Sherman had calculated 
on seriously damaging Johnston when he retreated, but was 
unable to reach him, Johnston having the only direct good 
road, while our flanking advance was made with great 
difficulty. Howard entered Dalton on the heels of the 
enemy, and pressed him sharply down to Resaca. 

*' Sherman forthwith set on foot a new flanking move- 
ment by his right to turn Johnston out of Resaca ; which 
Johnston countered by an attack on Hooker and Schofield, 
still in his front and on his left ; but he was rather 
worsted in the bloody fight thus brought on — Hooker 
driving the Rebels from several hills, taking four guns 
and many prisoners. The Rebels retreated across the 
Oostenaula during the night, and our army entered 
Resaca in triumph the next morning." 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 397 

In this manner quite two months were spent, Johnston 
retreating from position to position in consequence of the 
skilful manceuvrings of his shrewd antagonist, the Con- 
federates losing about 10,000 men, and we, of course, 
more than twice that number. In capturing strongholds 
by skilfully turning the position of an enemy, Sherman 
has revealed the possession of a very essential form of 
military talent of which General Grant is wholly destitute. 
General Grant knows but one method of attacking a 
strong position which cannot be besieged, the very worst 
form of attack known to the science of war, namely, 
moving his lines up directly in front of the enemy's 
batteries, and there letting his men be mercilessly slaugh- 
tered, until endurance ceases to be a virtue, and a con- 
fused retreat becomes a necessity. The idea of moving 
round a position, and taking the enemy " eend-wise like," 
never had place in the brain of our Commander-in-Chief. 
Grant's prisoners from Georgia, if he had taken any, 
could with truth have said to our soldiers, *' The you- 
uns do treat the we-uns fair. When the we-uns are 
drawn up behind the we-uns' strong fortifications, the 
you-uns always come right up in front of the we-uns, and 
suffer the we-uns to shout the you-uns down just as the 
we-uns want to. That is fair." 

When our army, June 27th, had arrived at Kenesaw 
Mountain, within about twenty miles of Atlanta, however, 
General Sherman acted a tragical scene which clearly 
revealed the fact that he was possessed of the quality so 
conspicuous in his illustrious predecessor. The Confede- 
rates having made, under General Hood, an unsuccessful 
attack upon a portion of our line. General Sherman deter- 
mined to return the compliment. Having made careful 
preparations at two points, to the south of this mountain, 
and in front of Thomas and McPherson's position, he 
ordered each of these Generals to make the assault upon 
the enemy's line. The attack, in both cases, was of course 
repulsed with great slaughter, we losing upwards of 3,000 
men ; Generals Harker and Daniel McCook were also killed, 
and many brave officers were badly wounded ; the loss 
of the Confederates being 442 in all. The reason assigned 
by General Sherman for thus assaulting a position most 



398 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

obviously impregnable, is very singular. " I perceived,' 
he says, *' that the enemy and our own officers had settled 
down into a conviction that I would not assault fortified 
lines. All looked to me to outflank. An army, to be 
efficient, must not settle down to one single mode of 
offence, but must be prepared to execute any plan that 
promises success. I wished, therefore, for the moral effect 
to make a successful assault on the enemy behind his 
breastworks. I yet claim that it produced good fruits, as 
it demonstrated to General Johnston that I would assault, 
and that boldly ; and we also gained and held ground so 
close to the enemy's parapets that he could not show a 
head above them." Perhaps General Sherman had in 
remembrance, when he gave the presumptuous order for 
the above attack, a scene which was enacted under his 
command at Jackson, Miss., in July of the previous year. 
At least he should have remembered this event, and also 
his own experience in another like assault at Vicksburg, 
when he was sent down to capture that city. Some minds, 
however, are slow to learn from experience. We refer 
to these facts because the reckless sacrifice of human 
life and limb in such mad assaults cannot be held in too 
great reprobation. Let us now recur to the assault at 
Jackson, when General Sherman was making his advances 
upon the position of General Johnston at that place. Our 
citations are from *' Personal Recollectionsof Army Life," 
by James D. English. The length of the citations will 
not be a matter of regret to the reader, and may we not 
hope that such experiences will deter future Generals from 
repeating such mad assaults upon fortified positions ? Now 
to the citations : — 

'* Early on the morning of July 12th, General Hovey 
advanced his lines to within eight hundred yards of the 
Rebel works, after some sharp fighting, and hastily erected 
a barricade of logs to protect the men from a sudden rush 
of the besieged. 

" By this move a gap of nearly half a mile was created 
between the two divisions, which if the enemy should dis- 
cover, would enable them to pour a heavy force through 
the opening, and force Hovey to retreat from his barricade 
to save his rear 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 399 

'* To remedy this an order came to General Lauman to 
push forward with his division, drive back the enemy, and 
connect with General Hovey on a straight line, great 
stress being placed on the words on a straight line, which, 
strange to say, if done, would place the parallel to be establi<;hed 
twenty feet inside the Rebel lines on the right, as General 
Hovey' s line was then within musket range of the enemy. 

"It was unmistakably evident that the 'Star' that 
sent that order could not have known the nature of the 
ground, or the exact position of the Rebel works, or It 
would have never been issued, or at least would have been 
modified to suit the nature of the case. 

" However, it was ' orders,' and nothing remained but 
to obey. Accordingly, General Lauman selected for the 
task the ist Brigade, Brevet Brigadier-General J. C. Pugh 
commanding, consisting of the 3rd Iowa, 28th, 41st, and 
53rd Illinois Volunteers, and two 12-pound howitzers of 
the 5 th Ohio battery. 

" The brigade moved down the hill, across the bottom, 
halted and formed in column. Unfurling the colours, the 
line moved slowly forward through a field of green corn 
that had been carefully put down by somebody, and beyond 
the field the ground was covered with brush piles, logs, and 
abattis, rendering it extremely difficult to move in anything 
like order. The Rebel works were in full view, the brigade 
still advancing. As yet no one could be seen in the works, 
and not a shot had been fired. What did it mean ? Could 
the enemy have retreated ? Surely it seemed so ! 

" Ah ! most unfortunate conclusion ; the brigade had 
reached within 300 yards of the ditch, and were congratu- 
lating themselves on a bloodless victory, when suddenly 
there burst forth a deafening chorus of yells, as if a Pan- 
demonium had emptied its legions upon earth, and the 
next instant there arose from the heretofore silent works 
a double rank of the enemy, and poured upon the heads 
of our column a deliberate, murderous, staggering fire of 
musketry that was absolutely awful In Its destructfulness. 
The killed and wounded fell almost In heaps. Great open- 
ings were torn out of the ranks, by the hissing death-sleet 
that streamed from the Rebel line. Although staggered 
by the suddenness of the attack, the regiments bravely 



400 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

returned the fire (braver men never handled guns than 
were the ist brigade boys), but it was no use, for the Rebels, 
sheltered behind their works, fired deliberately, every shot 
taking effect, while our boys, without stick or stump to 
shelter them, and appalled at the frightful destruction that 
was fast thinning their ranks, fired wildly. A few of the 
men reached the ditch under the Rebel battery, but were 
almost instantly shot down or captured. Deeming further 
effort useless, General Page ordered the survivors of this 
murderous contest to fall back. When the brigade fell 
back, and the survivors re-formed and were numbered, it 
was found that the loss was appalling. 

"The brigade went into action 803 strong; killed, 
wounded, and captured, 508 ; came out of action with 295 
survivors. Third Iowa went into action with 241 men; 
killed, wounded, and captured, 157; came out of action with 
84 survivors. Forty-first Illinois went into action with 234 
men ; killed, wounded, and captured, 162 ; came out of 
action with 72 survivors. Twenty-eighth Illinois volunteers 
went into action with 128 men; killed, wounded, and cap- 
tured, 55 ; came out of action with 73 survivors. Fifty- 
third Illinois volunteers went into action with 200 men ; 
killed, wounded, and captured, 134 ; came out of action 
with 66 survivors. 

"General Hovey, who had witnessed the battle, rode 
up to where the brigade was halted, and when he learned 
the extent of the loss, declared it the most unprecedented 
loss for the length of time (forty- eight minutes by his 
watch) that he ever heard of. Checking his horse in front 
of the brigade, and lifting his cap gracefully, the General 
said : * Soldiers of the First Brigade ! I know you ; I have 
heard of your bravery and devotion before ; I know you 
are true to every instinct of patriotism and love of country, 
but what better evidence need I ask than those historic names 
— Donelson, Shilo, Big-Hatchie, and Vicksburg — I see 
emblazoned upon your flags, yet begrimed by the smoke 
of the battle just closed, and your shattered ranks before 
me ? They speak, my brave fellows, in silent but eloquent 
praise of your heroism and devotion to our cause. Indeed, 
gentlemen, to illustrate your case briefly, jv^?^ remind me of 
old-rye whisky — the older it gets the better it is,^ 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 4OI 

** With a few more clever words, General Hovey rode 
back to his division. 

" The Rebels were 4,000 strong, and one battery and 
6 guns. Loss: 27 killed and 55 wounded." 

General Sherman, now fully convinced of the inex- 
pediency of assaulting his opponent's positions by direct 
attack, resorted to his hitherto successful expedient of 
accomplishing his purposes by the less costly one of flank 
movements. By movements of this character — movements 
very skilfully planned and executed — Johnston was again 
necessitated to move back, first from the Kenesaw, and 
then quite across the Chattahoochee river, within about 
ten miles from Atlanta. After getting his own army over, 
and in a state of readiness to recommence operations as 
soon as the proper time should arrive, General Sherman 
gave his soldiers a few days of necessary rest. While 
thus waiting, he was joined by General Rousseau with 
2,000 cavalry, this General having come in twelve days, 
and by a long circuit, from Decatur, Ala., — verifying 
the practicability of readily moving an army from that 
point to Atlanta. 

During this interval, also, an event occurred which 
changed the whole aspect of the campaign, and finally 
annihilated the last hope of the Confederacy. We refer 
to the substitution of General J. B. Hood, of Texas, in the 
place of General Johnston, as commander of the army 
opposed to General Sherman. Of General Johnston, 
justice requires the historian to afiirm that, as a General, 
he probably had no superior in ability in the Confederate 
army. He had courage, energy, and prudence, of by no 
means an inferior order. His successor, on the other 
hand, had courage and energy, without prudence. He 
had fighting qualities of a high order. These, however, 
were all under the control of one fixed idea — acting on the 
offensive, attacking the enemy in whatever position he 
might be found, and that with a reckless disregard of the 
inferiority of force on the part of the assailing party. He 
was, consequently, the very man needed to waste away 
the small force which remained under his command in the 
shortest time possible, and thus ensure a speedy collapse 
of the Confederacy. His predecessor had, up to the time 

26 



402 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

of his supersedure, acted, and that very prudently, upon 
the only policy which wisdom dictated in his circumstances, 
namely, to fight only when it could be done with small 
expenditures of his own forces, and large draughts upon 
the resources of his opponent — to draw away his enemy 
from his base of supplies, always necessitating him to 
diminish his own forces by leaving large bodies behind 
to guard his rear — to continue this process until the pur- 
sued should be stronger than the pursuer ; and then fall 
upon the enemy and crush him in detail. Atlanta was the 
position fixed upon by General Johnston for a final stand, 
the most formidable position which General Sherman had 
yet approached, lying between that city and the Chatta- 
hoochee, while the city itself was, on all sides, most im- 
pregnably fortified, and prepared for a long siege. 

From all perils of this character, the blind giant with 
his little club — the giant who succeeded Johnston, soon 
relieved us. He received his command for the known 
purpose of assuming the offensive, and he immediately 
acted under the impulse of his native instincts. His 
effective force, when he assumed the command, says 
Pollard, was 41,000 infantry and artillery, and 10,000 
cavalry. During the nearly two months which inter- 
vened between this period and the time when he aban- 
doned Atlanta, he fought with our army no less than three 
pitched battles, in which he was the assailant, — in which he 
was, of course, defeated, with losses to us which we could 
afford to endure, but with a loss to himself of quite one- 
third of the forces under his command — losses which ruined 
the cause which he was appointed to defend. If we bear 
m mind that it took Sherman, within four days, as much 
time, after he had crossed the Chattahoochee, to capture 
Atlanta, as he had spent in all his prior campaign, and 
this when opposed to such a blind giant as Hood, we shall 
at once be impressed with the apprehension that that 
campaign might have had a very different outcome had 
Johnston been continued in command. In that case, the 
probabilities would evidently have been fearfully against 
us, and might have presented another verification of the 
fundamental error on which all advances into the Confede- 
rate termtory were made, namely, an advance on one line by 



SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 403 

a single force. By an advance on this principle, the 
enemy, by threatening communications, can necessitate the 
advancing- army to weaken itself by constantly leaving 
large forces behind to protect its rear, and thus at length 
becoming so weakened that the enemy will be the strongest^ 
and then defeat in detail the invading force. By advanc- 
ing into Russia on this principle, which he proclaimed as 
the only proper one, Buonaparte found himself but a little 
stronger than his enemy at Borodino, and too weak' to do 
anything effective at all when he arrived at Moscow. 
Hence that disastrous retreat which cost him his empire. 
Had the French army escaped from Metz, Paris would not 
have fallen. The communications of the German army 
would have been so exposed, that they could not have 
been provisioned around the city. In our discussions 
before President Lincoln in January 1863, we fully con- 
vinced him, and drew from him a distinct avowal of the 
conviction, that the principle, — that under consideration, — 
on which all our invasions of Confederate territory, up to 
that time, had been made, is a totally false one. The 
principle on which the campaign under consideration was 
made Is wholly of this bad character, and but for a change 
in the command of the Confederate army would in all 
probability have resulted in a national disaster. General 
Johnston, as we have been informed on authority which we 
deem perfectly reliable, calculated that at the opening of 
the campaign the relative amount of the forces of the two 
armies was as twelve to seven. At the time when he was 
superseded, he calculated that the ratio stood at seven to six. 
At that time Sherman was In circumstances where he would 
be compelled to fight at great disadvantage. One or two 
battles fought under such circumstances would change 
the relative strength of the armies, so that the Confede- 
rates would be the strongest, and our army would be at 
their mercy, and would be crushed by superior forces. 
Such were the definite plans of General Johnston when he 
was superseded. 

On the morning of September ist, General Sherman, 
who was then twenty miles from Atlanta, heard sounds 
which clearly indicated that something of the greatest 
moment was transpiring in that city. Three days after, he 



4C4 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

received intelligence from General Slocum that the sounds 
heard were the result of the explosion of the Confederate 
magazines in the city — an event which had been followed 
by the retirement of Hood and his army, and the peaceable 
entrance of ours into that same stronghold. Between 
September 5th and 7th, Sherman returned, and sent a tele- 
gram to Washington that '* Atlanta has been fairly won.'* 
In capturing the city, but very few prisoners fell into our 
hands. The loss to the Confederates, however, was 
immense. The position itself was of great importance ; 
and the munitions, guns, cars, locomotives, manufactories, 
and machinery, all together constituted a loss truly irre- 
parable. 

One fact occurred at this time which does not add to 
the credit of General Sherman as a general. The Con- 
federate army was now divided into two parts, and these 
were separated quite a distance from one another, while 
our army was so located that any amount of force which 
our commander might deem requisite might have been 
readily thrown in between the separated parts referred to, 
and have fallen with crushing weight upon either, or both 
in succession. Movements might obviously have been 
made which would have rendered it impossible for General 
Hood ever to have reunited his army. General Hardee, for 
example, as Sherman was from careful reconnoissance fully 
aware, was about twenty-five miles to the south of Atlanta, 
at a place named Lovejoy, in a strongly entrenched camp, 
while General Hood with the other half of his army had 
retired in quite another direction. By placing a strong 
force between Hood and Hardee, the one half of the Con- 
federate army under the latter must inevitably have been 
defeated and captured. This golden opportunity, however, 
was neglected, and the Confederate army was reunited 
near Jonesboro', it being the fixed policy of our Generals 
to capture positions, and not armies. Here, by forced 
conscription, that army was raised to nearly its primal 
strength, consisting now of 35,000 infantry and 10,000 
cavalry. 

The policy of the Confederate commander, at this crisis, 
was certainly very shrewd. Passing his entire army over 
the Chattahoochee, he moved directly upon Sherman's 



SHERMAN S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 4O5 

communications. As soon as our commander became 
aware of this fact, he sent General Thomas to Nashville, 
giving him full command of all forces in that department ; 
while General Sherman himself, leaving- Slocum with the 
20th corps at Atlanta, hastened with the rest of his army 
to protect his imperilled rear. Hood made unsuccessful 
attempts to capture Altoona, then Kingston, Rome, and 
finally Resaca, to all of which places Sherman pursued the 
enemy in hot haste, without, however, being able to bring his 
antagonist to a stand-up fight, an event which, by this time, 
misfortune had taught Hood sufficient wisdom not to desire. 
At Fayetteville all movements and dispositions to bring on 
a general engagement having failed, and the enemy, passing 
round our front, and moving by our left, having suddenly 
become invisible, and gone our commander could not divine 
whither, the pursuit was given over. Halting finally near 
Galesville, Ala., and searching in vain for his vanished foe, 
our commander concluded that Hood had passed over 
Sand Mountain, and was moving in the direction of Nash- 
ville. This conjecture was confirmed by information that 
Hood, passing Decatur, had crossed the Tennessee at 
Florence, and was marching, or making preparation to 
march, into Tennessee. Detaching the 4th corps under 
Stanley, and the 23rd under Schofield, with the mass of his 
cavalry under Wilson, with orders to march to Chattanooga 
and report to Thomas, Sherman, with a single division of 
cavalry under Kilpatrick, and the rest of his army, returned 
to Atlanta to prepare for his famous march across the 
State of Georgia. Thus ended this Atlanta campaign, a 
campaign which, as we have seen, involved a fundamental 
error in its plan, was prosecuted with much skill and 
energy, and at a vast expenditure of men and treasure, and 
produced comparatively small results to the benefit of the 
nation. Of the verity of this statement, the reader will be 
rendered fully aware when we shall have noticed certain 
operations west of the Mississippi, and then presented a 
general view of the state of affairs, together with the plan 
of the Confederates at this time. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

OPERA TIONS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

*' The comprehensive plan" of General Grant compre- 
hended, as we have stated, the idea of a nearly simul- 
taneous movement upon the enemy, on a line quite 1,500 
miles in extent, — namely, that of the Potomac, under Grant 
himself, in Virginia; that of the Cumberland, under Sherman, 
in Georgia ; and two others, one under Banks, and another 
under Steele, in Texas and Arkansas. The results of the 
first two campaigns are before us. Let us now turn our 
thoughts to the current of events west of the Mississippi. 

As early as January 1864, General Banks had planned 
a campaign in Texas, by way of Galveston, — a plan to 
enter the State from the sea-coast. This plan was super- 
seded by another and different one, a movement up the 
Red river for the capture of Shreveport, and the general 
conquest of the State. This plan was to some extent 
matured before General Grant assumed supreme com- 
mand, but was after that adopted as a part of his "com- 
prehensive plan.*' The force set apart for this movement 
amounted to quite 40,000 men. Of these, some 15,000 
were under the immediate command of General Banks at 
Franklin, Louisiana, and 15,000 under General Steele at 
Little Rock, Arkansas, while 10,000 were to be sent from 
Vicksburg, up the Red river, under General A. J. Smith. 
These forces, attended by Admiral Porter with a fleet of 
fifteen ironclads and four lighter steamers, were under 
four distinct and independent commands, neither reporting 
or accountable to the other. " While four forces," said 
General Banks, before the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War, — " General Steele's, Sherman's (under General 



OPERATIONS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 407 

Smith), Admiral Porter's, and my own, — were operating- 
together, neither one of them had a right to give a com- 
mand to the other. General Smith never made any report 
to me, but considered his as substantially an independent 
force. It took us twenty days to communicate with General 
Steele ; and then we could only state our position, ask 
what he was doing, and give advice ; but we could not 
tell whether he followed the advice or not, or what he was 
doing." The result of a grand expedition thus conducted 
could not but be a failure. Steele's army never came upon 
the field at all. Of the 10,000 sent from Vicksburg, 3,000 
marines were soon recalled to guard the Mississippi. At 
Alexandria, some seventy or eighty miles up the Red 
river, 3,000 more troops had to be left to guard the depot 
of supplies. After getting up some distance farther, to 
Natchitochis, the river was found to be too low to float 
safely the heavy ironclads, and all means to remedy the 
evil proved ineffectual ; while in an important crisis. 
General Franklin, as might have been expected, failed to 
come up in time. After fighting several bloody battles, 
in the most important of which, that at Pleasant Hill, both 
parties claimed the victory, the expedition returned with 
the acknowledged loss of quite 5,000 men. General Banks, 
who had to bear the blame of the blunders of his superiors, 
was now superseded. General Canby being put in command. 
General Steele, after making ineffectual efforts to enter 
into communication with General Banks, gave over all 
attempts to reach Shreveport; and, on hearing of the 
latter' s reverses, faced in the opposite direction. The 
efforts of the Confederates were now directed mainly to 
two ends — the recovery of Arkansas, and a grand invasion 
of Missouri. In both respects those efforts were successful. 
After various battles of greattM and less importance, 
battles in some of which one party, and in others the 
other, was successful, Arkansas was practically recovered to 
the Confederacy, and about the middle of September, 
General Price, having been reinforced by General Shelby, 
entered South- Eastern Missouri with an army from 20,000 
to 30,000 strong, and met with no resistance until he 
encountered a single brigade under General H. vS. Ewing, 
at Pilot Knob. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

RESULTS OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS OF 1864; 
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE OF THE UNION AND 
CONFEDERATE COMMANDERS. 

We have deemed it essential to a full and correct under- 
standing of the conduct of this war, to devote a single 
chapter to a consideration of the results of the great 
campaigns of this year — results up to the ist October, 
on the one hand, and of the plans of the Union and Con- 
federate military authorities for the future, on the other. 
The results of these campaigns may be stated in a few 
words. The relative strength of the hostile forces, we 
must bear in mind, was, at the beginning of May, as 
1,000,000 of men on our side, to not over 200,000 against 
us, on the other. In the Eastern Department, where our 
forces, at the time referred to, outnumbered those of the 
Confederacy there as more than three to one, the results 
of the campaign may be thus summed up. On the ist 
May, the main portion of our Grand Army lay at Cul- 
pepper, holding full control of by far the largest part of 
the territory of Virginia, and all parts of that army so dis- 
tributed that they could act together as a perfect unity. 
On the ist October, we find the main portion of this 
territory reconquered to the Confederacy, and the Grand 
Army of the Potomac separated into three parts, and 
these located at unsupporting distances from each other, — 
namely, the main body under Grant "bottled and corked 
up" in that narrow peninsula in front of Petersburg^; 
another great force at Washington, — a force lying idly 
there to preserve the city from the grasp of the enemy ; 
and a third army, 30,000 to 40,000 strong, under General 



1 



RESULTS OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS OF 1 864. 409 

Sheridan in the Shenandoah, with a wide strip of territory, 
barbarously desolated, in its front, — and all to guard Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland against a fourth invasion. These 
great results have been gained at a loss of from 140,000 
to 150,000 brave men. We must bear in mind, also, 
that all these immense forces, increased by more than 
70,000 one-hundred-days' men, lay, from this period 
until the opening of the next spring campaign, as im- 
movable as *' a sea of stagnant idleness," and this 
while all the Confederate forces in our immediate front 
numbered less than 70,000 men, and could at no time 
have numbered more than that, a blank ignorance sitting 
as a nightmare upon the brain of our Commander-in-Chief 
as to what use ought to be made, under the circum- 
stances, of the immense and overwhelming forces under 
his command. 

In the grand centre of the great movement we find 
General Sherman, after a four months' campaign, in 
which we have lost upwards of 40,000 of our best 
troops, advanced from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and here 
located in a city made as desolate as Herculaneum, and 
that for reasons which neither humanity nor national 
necessity can justify, while Tennessee is invaded by 
a hostile army 50,000 strong, and General Sherman 
is sending back a large portion of his forces to save 
that State from being reconquered to the Confederacy. 
West of the Mississippi, the campaign, up to the period 
under consideration, was a series of disasters to the 
national cause. We have only to think of the defeats of 
Generals Banks and Steele, the expulsion of our army from 
Texas, the recovery of Arkansas to the Confederacy, and 
the imposing invasion of Missouri to recover it to the 
enemy, to apprehend at once the strict correctness of the 
above statement. 

Such, up to the time under consideration, were the 
results of our grand campaigns conducted under ** the 
comprehensive plan" of our Commander-in-Chief, — results 
gained at the most enormous expenditure of the national 
treasury, and at the loss on our part of nearly or quite 
200,000 men. In view of such results, — results gained 
through the controlled agency of 1,000, coo men against 



4IO THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

200,000, — a large portion of my countrymen will have it 
that in this Commander-in-Chief we have a greater than 
a Wellington or a Napoleon — a Caesar *' come again." 

Plan of the Confederate authorities. 

Let us now turn our attention, for a few moments, to a 
consideration of the plans of the Union, on the one hand, 
and on the other, of the Confederate, military authorities, at 
this time. In respect to that of the latter, we would say 
that, in two fundamental respects, it resembled the original 
one of General Grant, — namely, that as far as mere extent 
was concerned, it was very comprehensive ; and as far as 
the idea of combination of forces for the realization of 
desired ends Is concerned, this plan in reality compre- 
hended nothing, and miscalculated everything. A mind 
of the feeblest intelligence can determine to act upon a 
widely extended field, and can make certain dispositions 
for such action. To comprehend the entire situation, 
however, and to understand the combination of forces 
demanded by existing circumstances, is quite another 
matter. When, In the fall of 186 1, it became evident that 
an Inflexible determination existed in the Government and 
people of the North to put down the Rebellion, its leaders 
ought to have dissolved their Government and army, and 
returned to their homes. Nothing In the future was more 
certain, whatever errors in the conduct of the war might 
exist, than the restoration of the union of these States. The 
temporary advantages gained by the Confederate armies 
were In fact disastrous defeats, because such advantages 
were secured by sacrifices which assured the ultimate 
extinction of those armies. Whatever of lost territory was 
reconquered, merely attenuated the feeble power of the 
Confederacy over a wider extent of country than before, and 
thus rendered the conquest of the whole rebellious States 
a matter of greater ease and certainty. The machinery 
of the Confederate power may be compared to a machine 
which an Individual, many years ago, submitted to critical 
inspection in the city of Boston — a machine in which the 
Inventoraffirmed that he had solved the problem of perpetual 
motion. The machine was of strange and admirable struc- 
ture, and seemed perfect in all its parts. There was one. 



RESULTS OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS OF 1 864. 4II 

and only one, difficulty about it — it would not go. There was 
no " living spirit" In its wheels to set it In motion, or keep 
it going when started by power from without. So It was with 
the Confederacy. There was from the beginning a friction 
in all its motions, a friction which rendered Its continued 
action Impossible, — *'a sentence of death in Itself," which 
rendered its dissolution at no distant day a necessity. 
All the plans of the Confederates, consequently, had in 
them the element of the absurd, — the attempt to realize 
the Impossible. This was true, however those plans might 
give promise of temporary success. 

Their plan for the two campaigns under consideration — 
that In Missouri, on the one hand, and that In Tennessee, 
on the other — looked In the direction of vast results, and 
bore as fair promises of success as characterized any of the 
Important aggressive movements made by the Confederacy 
during the war. In November ensuing, the Presidential 
election was to occur, an election in which the national 
choice lay between President Lincoln and General 
McCIellan. The results anticipated from the invasion of 
Missouri by General Price, were, Arkansas having already 
been recovered, that by a general rising in Missouri, not 
only to recover that State permanently to the Confederacy, 
but by an invasion of Iowa to prevent all these three States 
fromi taking part In the election, and thus to ensure a 
majority of Presidential votes for the Democratic candidate. 
Among the documents which General Pleasanton captured 
while repelling this invasion, he found one in which this 
Identical plan was specifically laid down. Such was the plan 
of the Confederate campaign west of the Mississippi. 

As far as Tennessee was concerned, it was fully believed 
that if General Hood should, with an army 50,000 
strong, cross the Tennessee river, and capture Franklin 
and Nashville, there would be a universal uprising through- 
out the State in the interest of the Rebellion, an uprising 
which would be at once followed in Kentucky, and these 
two States would be recovered to the Confederacy. Nor 
was this all that was hoped from these invasions. The 
Idea of an uprising in the Free States, to stop the effusion 
of blood, and prevent the success of the emancipation 
measures of the Government, — the idea which induced the 



412 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

invasion of Pennsylvania and Maryland by General Lee, — 
still had place in the plans and hopes of the Confederate 
authorities, and induced them to put forth all possible 
efforts to secure signal success, especially in the States of 
Tennessee and Missouri. Judged in the light of such con- 
siderations, the advance of General Price into Missouri, 
and that of General Hood into Tennessee, were as wise 
and prudent as were those of General Lee into Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland. The idea entertained by General 
Price, however, of forcibly preventing an election in Iowa, 
gives the appearance of the ridiculous to his whole scheme. 

Plan of the Unionists, 

We now turn to a consideration of the plan of our own 
commanders, the plan of which General Sherman, with truth 
no doubt, claims to have been the originator. General 
Sherman is now at Atlanta, with an effective force, accord- 
ing to his own statement, of 62,000 veteran and able- 
bodied troops, under his immediate command. General 
Hood, with an army upwards of 50,000 strong, had crossed 
the Tennessee river to recover the State of Tennessee 
at all events, and Kentucky if possible, to the Confederacy. 
To repel this invasion, General Thomas, in command 
there, had an effective force under his immediate control of 
less than 30,000 men. The possibility of preventing the 
capture of Nashville, and all the consequent evils that 
might arise, depended upon a contingency to which the 
greatest uncertainty attached, namely, the timely arrival of 
adequate reinforcements from Missouri. We must bear in 
mind here, that General Smith, with a corps 20,000 strong, 
had gone down as far as Cairo, and had been recalled 
from thence to repel the invasion of General Price. The 
onl}^ rational hope of success on the part of our com- 
mander was the early defeat of Price, and the subsequent 
timely arrival of Smith to aid Thomas against Hood. 
Another fact of fundamental importance lay out with 
perfect distinctness before the mind of General Sherman — 
the fact that in the army of General Hood lay the entire 
military power of the Confederacy, as far as all the States 
lying between Virginia and South Carolina and the Mis- 
sissippi river are concerned. To raise that army to its 



RESULTS OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS OF 1864. 4I3 

existing strength, all the remaining resources of those 
States had been put forth. To destroy that army was, in 
fact, to annihilate the military power of the Confederacy in 
the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and 
Tennessee. This end being accomplished, a Union army 
10,000 strong could have marched at will in any direction 
over and through any of these States. Another fact equally 
obvious presented itself at that time, the fact that this army 
lay within the visible grasp of General Sherman, and might 
have been utterly annihilated by him in four or six weeks* 
time at the farthest. Within the space of ten days, Hood 
moved his army from the vicinity of Resaca over the moun- 
tains to the front of Decatur. In two weeks, as none will 
deny, Sherman might have marched his army from Atlanta 
to the same point, or to any other point that might have 
been selected. It would have been perfectly easy for 
Sherman to deceive Hood into the belief that the former 
had started on his southern march, and thus to induce 
the latter to advance into the interior of Tennessee, 
in the direction of Nashville. This end being gained, 
Sherman should have suddenly changed his course, and 
by forced marches have moved upon Decatur, all his prior 
dispositions having been preparatory to this one grand 
movement. On arriving at this point, Hood would have 
been before Nashville, and would have been there between 
two armies each greater than his own — Thomas having been 
reinforced by General Smith from Missouri. Under these 
circumstances, the capture or annihilation of the entire 
Confederate army would have been an inevitable certainty. 
With Hood's army disposed of as it should have been, the 
last movement that would then have been thought of would 
have been that famous march across the State of Georgia. 
On the other hand, while to Thomas would have been 
assigned the care of the States above designated, Sherman 
with his veterans would have been transported round to 
Washington, or Anapolis, to finish up the war by an over- 
whelming movement upon General Lee. Sherman on his 
arrival might have moved out from Washington to Cul- 
pepper, being there reinforced by Sheridan, and his army 
thus raised to about 100,000 men, and then, with a crush- 
ing force, have moved upon Lee's rear. Under such 



414 '^HE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

circumstances, the latter would have surrendered, and the 
war have been terminated without fighting- a battle. The 
same end, though not so soon, would have been accom- 
plished by moving Sherman's army round from Anapolis 
to Wilmington, as Schofield's afterwards was, and moving 
it up upon Lee's rear through North Carolina. Undeniably, 
General Sherman had it in his power to have finished up 
the war in a few weeks during the autumn of 1864. 

Instead of discerning and availing himself of all these 
most palpable advantages, what were the visions which 
opened upon our General's mind and fixed his determina- 
tions? A thousand mile march of 62,000 men, first down 
to the ocean across one State, and then up through two 
other States, to the rear of General Lee's army before 
Petersburg. The advantages which such a march promised 
— feasting his army upon the hams, and pigs, and turkeys, 
and chickens of the Confederates on the way — outweighed, 
in the judgment of our General, all the palpable considera- 
tions and facts above indicated. Let us hear General 
Sherman himself upon this subject. " I only regarded 
the march from Atlanta to Savannah as a ' shift of base,' 
as the transfer of a strong army which had no opponent, 
and had finished its then work, from the interior to a point 
on the sea-coast, from which it could achieve other impor- 
tant results. I considered this march as a .means to an 
end, and not as an essential act of war. Still, then as 
now, the march to the sea was generally regarded as 
something extraordinary, something anomalous, some- 
thing out of the usual order of events ; whereas, in fact, I 
simply moved from Atlanta to Savannah, as one step in 
the direction of Richmond, a movement that had to be 
met and defeated, or the war was necessarily at an end. 
Were I to express my measure of the relative importance 
of the march to the sea, and of that from Savannah north- 
ward, I would place the former at one, and the latter at 
ten, as the maximum." General Sherman is unquestion- 
ably right in his estimate of the relative importance of 
that famous march across the State of Georgia. Except- 
ing as a means to an end, "a step in the direction of 
Richmond," that march had, in reality, no bearing upon 
the real issues of the war. The idea that feeding an army 



RESULTS OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS OF 1 864. 41 c 

of 62,000 men upon the people of a narrow territory across 
the State of Georgia, divided in sunder the Confederacy, 
as had often been affirmed, only betrays ignorance. The 
only real good proposed to be accomplished by that land 
march of i,ooo miles, was to get what might then remain 
of those 62,000 men into the rear of General Lee's army 
at Richmond. Here, undeniably, is a blunder of the 
gravest character. He might, by facing to the north 
instead of the south, and moving his army, not on foot, 
but by rail and steam, have reached that point, not after a 
wearisome and destructive march of five months, but in 
less than four weeks, and that without wearisomeness or 
loss of life on the way. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

GENERAL PRICES LAST INVASION OF MISSOURI. 

When General Rosecrans assumed the command In Mis- 
souri, he found all things there in a state of confusion and 
agitation. Oath- bound secret organizations existed, not 
only in this State, but over the north-west — organizations 
prepared for an uprising as soon as the favourable oppor- 
tunity should present itself. Not less than 23,000 in- 
dividuals were, in this State alone, found to have been 
bound together under oath to join General Price as soon 
as he should appear with a force which promised success. 
In a meeting of " the Order of American Knights," in St. 
Louis, a resolution was proposed and laid over, to com- 
mence operations in that city by the assassination of the 
Provost- Marshal, and seizing the head-quarters of the 
department. By order of General Rosecrans, the State 
Commander, Deputy Commander, the Grand Secretary, 
Lecturer, and from thirty to forty influential members of 
the Order, were seized and lodged in prison. The State 
Commander turned out to be the Belgian Consul in 
that city. An order for his release was sent on from 
Washington — an order which, by a disclosure of facts, 
General Rosecrans got reversed. While such a state of 
things existed, our commander found his embarrassments 
greatly augmented by the want of a military force adequate 
to the preservation of peace. Under such circumstances, 
General Price, with an army from 20,000 to 30,000 strong, 
mostly cavalry, entered the State at the south east, and 
advanced without resistance to Pilot Knob. There, as 
formerly stated, he met his first resistance from a single 
brigade commanded by General H. S. Ewing. In the 



GENERAL PRICE S LAST INVASION OF MISSOURI. 417 

battle which there occurred, the invaders lost upwards of 
1,000 men, Ewing losing about 200. Having inflicted 
this loss upon the Invaders, and after bravely repulsing 
two determined assaults, General Ewing made a safe 
retreat to Rolla, having at Harrison been joined by a body 
of cavalry sent to his assistance, the Illinois 17th, under 
Colonel Beverldge. In his retreat, General Ewing moved 
his forces sixty-six miles in thirty-nine hours. At Harri- 
son, our wearied forces were fiercely assailed by General 
Shelby. For thirty hours that brave band, under their 
brave commander, resisted the far superior forces precipi- 
tated upon them, until Colonel Beverldge arrived and 
Shelby drew off. 

General Price having, as he intended, threatened St. 
Louis, and fixed attention in that direction, turned to the 
north-west, obtained a ready control In the Interior of the 
State, and advanced In force against its capital, Jefferson 
City, having burned Herman, a Union settlement of Ger- 
mans, on his way. In his advance. Price was vigorously, 
but with much care, pursued by General A. J. Smith, 
brought up, as formerly stated, from Cairo, while on his 
way to reinforce General Thomas. General Smith had under 
him some 6,000 men, and 1,500 cavalry. At this time 
an Important accession of strength to our forces was made. 
General Mower, with quite 5,000 veteran troops, had fol- 
lowed in the rear of General Price out of Arkansas, having, 
over exceeding bad roads, marched upwards of 300 miles 
in eighteen days. This force was brought by steam- 
boats from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis, and from thence 
hastened on to Jefferson City to aid In Its defence against 
General Price. 

At this time "the Indiscretions" of our military 
authorities at Washington brought upon the scene a man 
adequate to the occasion. General Pleasanton having been 
dismissed from the Army of the Potomac, and sent to the 
Western Department, arrived, and assumed command of 
the forces in the Interior of the State. On his arrival, 
he found 12,000 men In Jefferson City, General Mower 
having arrived. Of these, about 5,000 were cavalry. 
These forces, commanded by General FIsk, were acting on 
the defensive, and were cutting down even the shade-trees 

27 



4l8 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

about the city to strengthen the defences. General 
Pleasanton, having, as formerly stated, captured docu- 
ments which revealed the plans of the enemy, determined 
upon a prompt and vigorous assumption of the offensive, 
combining with those before him the forces under General 
Smith, and others available for his purpose. Price's army 
was in no condition to meet such a movement. While 
his central force was before Jefferson City, nearly one-half 
of his army was north of the Missouri under General 
Shelby. 

Two circumstances now occurred which prevented the 
utter annihilation of Price's army, — General Smith was 
detained with our supplies, and by the destruction of the 
railroad bridge at Romine, where he was joined by General 
Mower. At this time Pleasanton and Smith both received 
positive orders from General Rbsecrans to move in force 
to Lexington. This delay, on the one hand, and deflection 
from the proper line of pursuit on the other, enabled 
Price to widen the distance between him and his pursuers, 
to bring back his forces from the north of the Missouri, 
and to concentrate them for retreat, defence, or attack, as 
circumstances might require. Having as far as possible 
remedied the evils of a false move, which absolute orders 
from his superior in command compelled him to make, 
and having got his cavalry into a moving condition, 
General Pleasanton made a direct and most vigorous pur- 
suit of the enemy. The detour referred to, however, 
rendered it impossible for General Smith with his infantry 
corps, all possible efforts to that end being put forth, to cut 
off Price's retreat south. All that could be done was by a 
vigorous pursuit. Now commenced a series of the most 
brilliant movements known in the history of this war. In 
three days General Pleasanton moved his cavalry quite 
1 20 miles, fought four battles, and gained as many 
important victories on the way. His first encounter was at 
Little Blue, at 10 a.m., October 22nd. Driving the enemy 
from a strong position at this point, he pressed hardly 
upon his flying footsteps until nightfall, when Independence 
was captured by a brilliant charge of cavalry. 

The next morning the pursuit was renewed. On 
arriving at the crossings of the Big Blue, the enemy, who 



GENERAL PRICE S LAST INVASION OF MISSOURI. 419 

had the day before made at this point an unsuccessful 
attack upon General Curtis, was found drawn up in order 
of battle, and fully prepared for a most stubborn resistance. 
The battle opened at 7 a.m., and at i p.m. the enemy was 
routed and fled from the field. At first General Curtis, 
with his Kansas forces, took up the pursuit. He soon 
gave place, however, to Pleasanton's cavalry. At 
Marais-des-Cygnes, after a march of sixty miles, the enemy 
was again overtaken. Aroused in their bivouac, at 4 a.m., 
by the booming of cannon, the Confederates sprang to 
their horses, and fled without their breakfasts. After being 
chased to Little Osage, they faced northward for a final 
stand against their relentless pursuers. Their line of battle 
displayed eight guns, the only cannon they had brought 
back with them. General Pleasanton instantly ordered a 
charge by two brigades, commanded by Generals Benteen 
and Phillips. The charge was, of course, most splendidly 
made, and resulted in the quick rdut of the enemy, with 
the loss of their eight guns, and more than 1,000 prisoners, 
besides many colours, a great amount of small-arms, and 
the most of their waggons. Among their prisoners were 
Major-General Marmaduke, Brigadier-General Cabell, and 
five colonels. A fresh brigade under General Sanborn 
now came up, and took the lead in the pursuit. A few 
miles farther south, the enemy made another stand. Here 
they were again put to rout, and driven headlong onward 
until darkness rendered further pursuit impossible. Burning 
their waggons and other materials, the enemy now took to 
their horses, and fled for life. Here, from mere exhaustion, 
Generals Pleasanton and Smith gave rest to the main 
portions of their forces. 

General Blimt, with a body of Kansas troops, and 
General Benteen' s brigade, followed by that of General 
S"'^born, moved upon the trail of the foe to Newtonia, in 
the south-western portion of the State. Here General Blunt 
encountered a stubborn resistance, and would have been 
worsted had not General Sanborn, after a march of 102 
miles in thirty-six hours, come up and secured a victory. 
With little left, as Mr. Greeley truly says, — " with little left 
to lose but their bodies and worn-out horses," the enemy 
escaped into Western Arkansas. General Curtis followed 



420 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

« 

on as far as Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he routed, with 
great loss to them and none to us, a body of 2,000 men, 
who were besieging a small Union force under Colonel 
Brooks. Long before this last of that memorable series 
of victories, which sent General Price a returnless fugitive 
and exile from the State of which he was Governor at the 
beginning of the war, General Smith, with a corps about 
20,000 strong, was on his way to Tennessee to aid Thomas 
in destroying the army of General Hood at Nashville. 
We shall speak of the cause and bearing of this event after 
we shall have considered the campaign in the State last 
referred to. 

Reflections on this campaign. 

According to the fixed principles and precedents of all 
prior campaigns during this war. Generals Pleasanton and 
Smith, and their bold coadjutors, deserve the deep repro- 
bation of the army and nation. We refer to the relentless 
pursuit by these men and their forces of General Price 
and his raiders, after the first signal defeat of those in- 
vaders had rendered their prompt retreat from the State of 
Missouri a certainty. After that defeat, all heart to fight 
was taken out of Price and his subordinates, and they 
became possessed of but one desire, and that was the 
.privilege of a peaceful departure from the State which 
they had invaded, taking along with them the plunder 
which they had gathered up during their invasion, and 
which they would so much need in their banishment. All 
such considerations their relentless pursuers utterly dis- 
regarded, not suffering the pursued to carry back one of 
the guns which they brought with them out of Arkansas 
and Texas. What, in all the precedents of all leading 
commanders during the war up to that time, can be pleaded 
in justification of the reckless conduct of General Sanborn 
in pushing his command upwards of a hundred miles in 
thirty- six hours, in order to perfect the disorganization of 
the debris of that flying foe? Even this did not satisfy 
the hungry maw of Curtis, but he must press forward into 
Arkansas, and perfect the paralysis of the Confederate 
cause there by the cruel defeat of that besieging force 
at Fayetteville. In this censure. General Rosecrans must 



GENERAL PRICES LAST TNVAST0>7 OF MISSCURL 42 1 

come in for his full share ; because he, from his high 
watch-tower at St. Louis, witnessed that relentless pur- 
suit, and might have stopped it. Yet he never uttered 
a prohibition, rebuke, censure, or expostulation, — and that 
when it was perfectly manifest that the pursuers not only 
grudged the invaders the plunder they were endeavouring 
to escape with, but the food which the men were endeavour- 
ing to collect to satisfy their famishing stomachs, and even 
the' wild grass with which they were endeavouring to keep 
their horses from falling under them, and to keep upon 
the reeling bodies of those animals the flesh they had on 
when the invasion began. And then, what shall be said 
of the promptitude with which General Smith, as soon as 
the ruin of Price was secured, was sent off to Tennessee 
to enable Thomas to inflict upon Hood the same relentless 
form of ruin which Pleasanton and his coadjutors had 
perpetrated upon Price ? What, finally, can be said in 
apology for Thomas in his palpable departure from the 
precedents of his illustrious predecessors, and copying 
such a new and dangerous example as had just been set 
him in Missouri ? No historian can find in the campaigns 
of those predecessors a single example that can be pleaded 
in excuse for the two campaigns under consideration. It 
is absolutely undeniable that those predecessors ought to 
have been dismissed for their incompetency or neglect of 
palpable duty, or Pleasanton and Thomas should have 
been cashiered for their reckless and cruel innovations. 



CHAPTER XXXL 

THE CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL HOOD IN 
TENNESSEE. 

We now turn to a consideration of the celebrated cam- 
paign of General Hood in Tennessee. We here notice 
two existing misapprehensions in regard to this campaign. 
As commonly represented, its prime object was to draw 
General Sherman back out of Georgia. If this was so, 
why did Hood tarry upoa the Tennessee river, crossing 
but a part of his army over until he had definite informa- 
tion that Sherman had broken from all his communications, 
and was considerably advanced on his march through that 
State ? And why did Hood, as soon as he was fully assured 
of Sherman's real purpose, commence his advance upon 
Nashville ? The truth is, that nothing was less desired 
than Sherman's return to Tennessee, and nothing was 
more desired than that he should continue his march south. 
The plan and purpose of Hood's invasion was, undeniably, 
what we have represented it to have been, a part of a great 
movement to restore Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri 
to the Confederacy, to secure a general uprising in the 
north-west against the emancipation policy of the national 
administration, and, if possible, to prevent Iowa taking part 
in the then approaching Presidential election. 

The other mistake is that the advance of Hood to 
Decatur was " a feint to cover his crossing farther west." 
General Hood, on the other hand, advanced to that point 
with the serious intent of crossing there, and was induced 
to change his plan by the prompt and wise dispositions of 
General Granger, then in command at that place. Know- 
ing that his forces were too small to withstand a general 



THE CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL HOOD IN TENNESSEE. 423 

assault from the army of General Hood, and being well 
aware of the importance of time to the Union cause, 
General Granger, to impose upon his antagonist, advanced 
his entire force, with all his guns, into his front line, every- 
where putting on a bold face, making a sortie on his left, 
and capturing 120 prisoners. Hood, inferring from what 
was visible in his front that a very large Union force was 
in Decatur, drew off, and passed the river at Florence. 

We shall not stop to detail the senseless folly which 
characterized this war as conducted by both sides. We 
refer to those cavalry raids in which this portion of these 
armies did a great deal of material damage, but accom- 
plished nothing decisive any way. We shall only refer to 
the essentials of the campaign itself. When he became 
fully assured that all danger of General Sherman's return 
to Tennessee was past, General Hood entered in right 
good earnest upon his intended campaign. His army 
was divided into three corps, under Generals Cheatham, 
A. P. Stewart, and S. D. Lee, while his splendid cavalry, 
12,000 strong, was commanded by General Forrest. To 
meet the invading force, quite 55,000 strong. General 
Thomas couJd send forward buffive divisions of infantry, — 
their number, as we shall see, being greatly increased near 
the close of the campaign. Falling back, as Hood ad- 
vanced, first from Pulaski to Columbia, and from this 
place to Franklin, our army, all its parts being concen- 
trated, made a determined stand here, General Schofield 
in command, to resist and turn back the further advance 
of the invading force. 

Battle of Franklin. 

To understand the nature of the battle-ground at this 
place, we would state that the Harpeth river, coming down 
from the south, passes the place on its east side, and then, 
turning due west, passes it on its north side, the river thus 
forming two sides of a square. Our army was so drawn 
up, that, with the river, it formed a hollow square, with 
Franklin near its centre, our right wing touching the 
river at the west, and our left at the north-east of the 
village. One division of our forces was located over the 
river to the east of the village ; while Fort Granger, from 



424 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

whence General Schofield observed the battle, lay still 
farther south on the same side of the river, near the point 
where it was touched by our left wing. Our army num- 
bered nearly or quite 20,000 men. Hood was present 
with his whole army, which had come down mainly on the 
Columbia and Nashville turnpike, which passes through 
the centre of 'the square above described. The entire 
force of the Confederate army thus confronted our left 
wing and part of our centre, where our main forces were 
drawn up, with defences very hastily constructed in their 
front. In the formation of Hood's army, Stewart was on 
his right, next the river, Cheatham on his left, and Lee in 
reserve, with the cavalry on both wings. As Hood looked 
upon the slight breastworks before him, he exclaimed to 
his men, " Break those lines, and there is nothing more 
to withstand you this side the Ohio river." The first 
assault of the enemy was irresistible. The Confederate 
forces rolled as a torrent over our breastworks, and cap- 
tured eight of our guns, with many prisoners. The hill 
was lost to us, and the enemy was closing up his ranks 
within our lines, our men rushing to the bridges under the 
idea that all was lost. At this crisis, a command rang out 
from General Opdycke : " First brigade, forward to the 
works!" In a moment, that fearless brigade advanced 
to the charge. The conflict was fearful ; but in a few 
minutes the enemy, taken perfectly by surprise, recoiled 
before that charge, and abandoned the works they had 
carried, leaving behind them 300 prisoners, ten battle 
flags, and all the guns they had taken from us. In vain 
did Hood continue, until 10 p.m , to push his columns 
upon the works which he had won by force, and lost by a 
surprise. During the night our army retired, and by noon 
the next day lay down to rest and sleep within the defences 
at Nashville. 

In this bloody battle, our losses, as officially reported, 
were, in killed, wounded, and missing, 2,326, while General 
Hood admits a loss in all, on his part, of 4,500 men. 
After spending the next day in caring for the wounded, 
and burying his and our dead, the Confederates moved, 
on December 2nd, to Nashville. It is singular that in 
this battle, none of our Generals were killed, and but one, 



THE CAMPAIGN OF GENPLRAL HOOD IN TENNESSEE. 425 

Major-General Stanley, wounded. The Confederates 
lost, in killed, Major-General P. R. Cleburne, " the 
Stonewall Jackson of the West," and Brig. -Generals Gist, 
Adams, Strahl, and Granbury. Among- their wounded 
were Major-General Brown, and Brig. -Generals Carter, 
Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell, and Scott; Brig.-General 
Gordon being taken prisoner. Such a victory is, in fact, 
a defeat. 

Siege and battle of Nashville. 

When Hood sat down before Nashville, the relative 
strength of the two hostile armies was very soon most 
materially changed. While the Confederate forces had 
been, in the various battles, reduced below 45,000, the 
Union forces, by the arrival of General Smith's corps from 
Missouri, and of 5,000 men, with a black brigade, from 
Chattanooga, had been rendered quite 50,000 strong. 
Wisdom now demanded a prompt retreat oi the invading 
army, and its precipitation upon General Sherman. Mili- 
tary prudence, however, had no place in the mind of 
General Hood. With an army obviously larger than his 
own, and a city quite strongly fortified in his front, what 
but ruinous defeat awaited him should he remain where 
he was ? By following on the track of Sherman, however, 
the Confederate commander had it most obviously in his 
power to inflict a great disaster upon the Union cause. 

On account of deficiency in cavalry, and that he might 
mount a few thousand of his men, General Thomas 
delayed action for a few days. This greatly perplexed 
and offended General Grant, as he looked out upon pass- 
ing events from the centre of the bottle in which he was 
corked up. Despatch after despatch was accordingly sent 
on, demanding of Thomas that he should open upon the 
enemy. To all such messages, one reply was sent, that 
the fight should begin as soon as the army could be 
prepared for it. Then a providential interposition rendered 
a fight on the part of Thomas, or an assault or a retreat 
on the part of Hood, nearly or quite impossible, — the 
occurrence of a week's cold of the greatest severity. This 
perplexed and irritated our Commander-in-Chief to the 
utmost. Thomas was threatened with displacement; 



426 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Log-an was sent on as far as Louisville, to assume the 
command, and push our forces upon the enemy. Finally, 
Grant himself came on to Washington with the deter- 
mination to hasten to Nashville and force the battle. To 
all commands and messages, Thomas replied that the 
authorities might displace him, if they chose. One thing 
he should not do, and that was, open the fight before his 
army was ready for it. 

At length the anxiously-looked-for event arrived. The 
weather became warm, and the organization of the army 
was perfected. Our army at first lay around the south 
side of the city in a semicircular form, our right touching 
the Cumberland river west, and our left at the east of the 
city, the river itself leading in a semicircle from our left 
around to our right. In our line, Smith held our right ; 
Wood, now commanding Stanley's corps, held the centre, 
and Schofield our left ; while Steedman, with the forces 
brought up from Chattanooga and other points, occupied 
several positions to the east of Schofield. Hood's line 
confronted our centre, and the main portion of Schofield's 
line. Thomas, December 14th, ordered an advance of his 
right and right centre, on the next day, the weather now 
being propitious. As a means of diverting attention from 
this movement, Steedman was ordered the morning before 
to assail, and roll up, Hood's right wing, and thereby 
cause a movement from his centre to repel the assault. 
This movement proving a success. Smith the next morning 
being sustained on his right by Wilson's cavalry, ad- 
vanced up the Hardenpike, and flanked Hood's left. 
Hatch's division of Wilson's cavalry first struck, and 
drove back the enemy from one of his positions, capturing 
a number of prisoners and waggons. The cavalry were 
now dismounted, and carried by assault, and in succession, 
two more redoubts. The result of these exploits was, 
not only the capture of three important redoubts, but eight 
guns, and upwards of 300 prisoners. In these assaults, 
Smith's infantry rendered all the aid which the rapid 
action of the cavalry permitted. About i p.m. Wood 
came into action on Smith's left, and carried, first. Hood's 
central, and then forced him back from his entire line to 
the foot of Harpeth Hills, south of his first position. The 



THE CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL HOOD IN TENNESSEE. 427 

result of this day's action was the capture of the enemy's 
whole line, 1,200 prisoners, sixteen guns, and forty wag- 
gons, our losses being very small. While these operations 
were going on, Schofield advanced to the right of Smith, 
and came into action just at nightfall. Our new line, as 
readjusted at evening for the next day's operations, was 
thus formed: Wilson, with his cavalry, was on ^our 
extreme right, and ready for a flank movement around 
Hood's left; Schofield was next; Smith in the centre; and 
Wood on our left, with Steedman, as before, still farther in 
that direction. 

The operations of the next day commenced with a 
simultaneous advance of our whole line. Wilson, on our 
extreme right, closed round the Confederate left and gained 
their rear. Schofield, facing to the east, threatened to roll 
up and close round their left flank. Smith confronted 
their centre, whilst Steedman and Wood assaulted and 
flanked Hood's right at a place called Overton Hills. The 
assault upon this position was repulsed with a terrible 
slaughter of our forces. The attack on our right and 
front, however, was successful, all the works of the enemy 
being carried, while Wilson's cavalry seized and held one 
of the enemy's main lines of retreat. Wood's and Steed- 
man's corps, hearing the shouts of victory from our centre 
and left, and being fully re-formed, charged a second time, 
and carried every position before them. The rout of 
Hood's entire army was now complete. Abandoning most 
of their guns and materials, and leaving many prisoners 
behind them, they fled in all directions south as best they 
could. 

Now commenced a relentless pursuit of the flying 
enemy — a pursuit like that which we have detailed as 
having occurred in Missouri. For several days the pur- 
suit was prosecuted, the enemy being driven from position 
to position, and from bivouac to bivouac, until the state 
of the roads, and the flooded streams, — the enemy destroy- 
ing all bridges behind them, — rendered further pursuit 
impossible. 

In this campaign, from its commencement to its close, 
our loss amounted in killed, wounded, and missing to 
about 10,000 men. According to the official statement of 



428 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

General Thomas, the prisoners captured from the enemy 
amounted in all to 11,857 men. If we add to these 1,332 
who were exchanged, and 2,207 deserters who received 
amnesty, the loss of the enemy, aside from their killed, and 
wounded who were carried off, amounted to 15,396. We 
captured, also, 72 serviceable guns, and upwards of 3,000 
small-arms. Among the prisoners were, one major- 
general, seven brigadiers, thirty colonels and lieutenant- 
colonels, twenty-two majors, 813 captains and lieutenants, 
and eighty-nine surgeons and chaplains. If we take into 
account the killed and wounded, and the numbers who 
had joined the campaign only for temporary service, the 
fact becomes obvious that the army with which Hood 
invaded Tennessee was practically annihilated. On his 
arrival at Tupelo, Mississippi, Hood was " relieved at his 
own request," the Confederate army having lost while 
under his command between 30,000 and 40,000 men ; 
the ruin of the Confederate cause in Tennessee, and the 
four States south of it, being consummated through his 
instrumentality. 

We must here put on record our decisive protest 
against the conduct of Thomas, after Hood's last defeat 
at Nashville, our protest being based upon all prior pre- 
cedents from the commencement of this war, the prior 
campaign in Missouri excepted. We write in no prejudice 
against General Thomas, or his illustrious predecessors in 
whose footsteps he refused to follow. What we say is 
dictated by one motive, to enable our countrymen rightly 
to understand the past, and to guard against its errors and 
blunders in the future. The obvious motive and plan of 
General Thomas was not only to defeat General Hood, 
but to annihilate his power for further mischief. In 
all prior victories under our leading commanders, those 
in Missouri excepted, this latter end seems to have been 
most carefully guarded against. After a victory over the 
enemy, the defeated army appeared to become a sacred 
thing in the regard of our Generals. We have heard it 
gravely asserted, that on the evening after the battle of 
Antietam, General Lee sent one of our captured officers 
to General McClellan, with a letter requesting the latter, 
in the name of humanity, not to press upon the Confede- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL HOOD IN TENNESSEE. 429 

rates In their disorganized and weakened condition. All 
this was pure fiction, of course, and was invented merely 
to illustrate the conduct of our Generals after a victory. 
Lee understood the state of facts too well to send such 
a request. He was well aware that, after a defeat, the 
Confederate armies were as safe from the perils of pursuit 
as from the falling" of the sky. 

After the victory of Thomas in Eastern Kentucky, and 
the capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson, the entire 
Confederate army at Bowling Green, as we have shown, 
lay within the easy grasp of Halleck and Buell. All ad- 
vance of our forces, and that against solemn protestations, 
was held back, until the enemy had full time to retire with 
all their ill-gotten plunder, to take with them ,$10,000,000 
worth of material from Nashville, to concentrate at Corinth, 
and then move up and slaughter thousands of our brave men 
at Shiloh. When Halleck had compelled the Confederates 
to retreat from Corinth, he stood still again until the enemy, 
by reorganizing his forces, could pass round our army and 
invade Kentucky a second time. When Buell had hastened 
back to that State, and by a defeat of the enemy had 
necessitated his retirement, he then prohibited pursuit, 
permitting the Confederate commander to retire at his 
leisure, driving off his immense droves of hogs and cattle 
and his long trains of waggons loaded with plundered 
provisions and goods, and afterwards to slaughter more 
than 50,000 of our men in the battles of Murfreesboro', 
Chickamauga, and on other fields. After his so-called , 
victory at Antietam, McClellan retired back miles into the 
country to sleep, prohibited all disturbance of the enemy 
while passing over the Potomac, and for more than forty 
days refused all pursuit, thus permitting General Lee to 
recuperate his forces, and afterwards destroy more than 
50,000 of our men in the battles of Fredericksburg, 
Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. After our great victories 
at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, nearly 
1,000,000 men, "well armed and equipped," with the 
exception of the single movement of Rosecrans with the 
Army of the Cumberland, and the relief of our forces, 
at Chattanooga and Knoxville, nearly i,ooo,coo men lay 
" in stagnant idleness, from July until the beginning of 



430 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

May of the next year, the Confederacy being- thus allowed 
full time to recover from the blows it had received, to adjust 
itself to its new relations, and with renewed energies and 
reorganized armies to enter the field of slaughter for the 
year 1864, that most bloody year of all the war. As 
soon as the Confederate lines were broken at Gettysburg, 
and the power to crush Lee, and end the war, was put into 
the hands of our General, he ordered an immediate stand- 
still of our forces, until the enemy had leisurely retired 
beyond the reach of danger. How tenderly, and by 
word of command, was subsequent pursuit conducted. 
And when Providence, by a swollen river, had again put 
the entire Confederate army into our hands, how sacred was 
that army in the regard of our commander, until the flood 
had subsided, and the enemy had passed safely and undis- 
turbed over upon his own " sacred soil," with full leisure 
there to recover strength to slaughter upwards of 150,000 
Union soldiers. When Bragg, with a large portion of his 
guns and material, and his army but a little more than 
30,000 strong, retreated before Grant and Sherman at 
Chattanooga, 100,000 men were compelled to lay idle on. 
the Tennessee, until that defeated and disorganized army 
had recovered strength to "beat down to the ground " 
more than 50,000 of our "strong and lusty" men. Had 
Sherman improved his three victories over Hood as Thomas 
did his two, the Confederate army would have been destroyed 
at Atlanta, instead of Nashville. It was, undeniably, by 
the utter and palpable i.eglect of our Generals to improve 
the manifest advantages which their victories so often put 
into their hands, that, more than any one cause, occasioned 
the amazing protraction of the war, the appalling slaughter 
of hundreds of thousands of our brave men, and the 
creation of that Atlantean debt with which our nation is 
now so oppressed. It was by a departure from such pre- 
cedents that the military power of the Confederacy was 
annihilated in the States of Missouri, Arkansas, and in 
fact in Texas, on the one hand, and, on the other, in those 
east of the Mississippi, and west of Virginia and the 
Carolinas. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

SHERMAN'S MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA. 

On the nth November, General Sherman, having- sent 
his sick and wounded back to Chattanooga, having 
destroyed the railroads and all property which might be 
used to his injury, having sent his last message to Wash- 
ington, and cut off all telegraphic communications between 
himself and the Northern States, commenced his famous 
march from Rome and Kingston to Savannah, a march 
of some six weeks' continuance, — a march which was 
made without fighting a battle worthy of being recorded, 
and in which almost the only impediment encountered was 
rains, swamps, and bad roads, — a march of 255 miles, and 
in which we lost in all less than 600 men. Before entering 
upon his march. General Sherman divided his army, up- 
wards of 60,000 strong, into two grand divisions, com- 
manded by Generals O. O. Howard and H. W. Slocum, 
each division being constituted of two corps, the four 
being commanded respectively by Generals P. J. Ooster- 
haus, F. B. Blair, J. C. Davis, and A. S. Williams; the 
cavalry being led by General J. Kilpatrick. When the 
army moved from Atlanta, it was furnished with bread for 
twenty, and meat, sugar, etc., for forty, and forage for 
three days, — supplies for the rest of the march being drawn 
from the country. As no incidents worthy of notice 
occurred during this march, we deem it important merely 
to direct special attention to the following statements and 
reflections in respect to it. 

The dismantling and depopulation of Atlanta, 

On taking possession of Atlanta, General Sherman sent 
off in different directions, at Government expense, and as 



432 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the people elected, all the inhabitants of the city, rendering 
its habitations tenantless. " This unprecedented measure," 
General Hood affirmed, " transcends, in studied and 
ingenious cruelty, all acts ever brought to my attention in 
the dark history of war." Of the truth of that statement 
posterity will judge. That it is difficult, if not impossible, 
to find a parallel for it in modern warfare, we deem 
undeniable. Nor can it be defended, or apologized for, 
on the ground of expediency. After the destruction of its 
fortifications and manufactories and railroad communica- 
tions, and its abandonment by our army, it had no im- 
portance as a military post to us, or to the Confederates. 
Nor did the depopulation of the place give us any facilities 
for its reoccupation, should we ever have desired to return 
to it. Just as valid reasons can be offered for the depopu- 
lation of Rome, Kingston, Macon, or Savannah, as for 
Atlanta. To be sure, the people were sent off at Govern- 
ment expense. After being thus conveyed to a certain 
distance, however, they were left homeless, and without 
provisions, or the means of obtaining them. We cannot 
regard the act in any other light than that of needless 
barbarism, like the desolation inflicted upon the defence- 
less population of the Shenandoah Valley. 

What the highest wisdom demanded of the Confederates at tht 
time of Sherman^ s ifivasion. 

The same fundamental blunders characterized this war 
as conducted by the Union, on the one hand, and the Con- 
federate military authorities on the other. We refer to 
a want of discernment o{ golden opportunities. When Hood 
lay at Florence, his army, as we have seen, was at the 
mercy of Sherman. As soon as Sherman advanced from 
Atlanta into the interior of Georgia, his army, most obvi- 
ously and undeniably, lay equally at the mercy of the 
Confederates. Practicable dispositions on their part would 
have rendered the capture ot the entire invading force an 
absolute certainty. Had Lee, as he might have done, 
with 10,000 men, reinforced Hardee, who confronted Sher- 
man, and had Hood, with his 45,000 infantry and artillery, 
and his 12,000 splendid cavalry, pressed upon our wings 
and rear, Sherman could, l~)y no possibility, have sustained 



SHERMAN S MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA. 433 

himself for two weeks, after he was assailed in his front 
and rear. This was the golden opportunity for the Con- 
federates, and, failing to discern it, they, in a militar}^ 
point of view, deserved most richly all the disasters that 
subsequently befell them. Viewed from the strategic 
standpoint, that famous march is one of the most pre- 
sumptuous movements known in history, a movement from 
the disastrous consequences of which we were saved but 
by the palpable want of discernment on the part of the 
Confederates. Such is the judgment which, as is well 
known, we passed upon the movement when it was being 
made, and which we have entertained ever since. When 
asked at the time what we thought of the movement, our 
reply was this : " If the Confederate military authorities 
are as blind to existing facts and exigencies as ours have 
thus far proved themselves to be, and Sherman is clearly 
aware of the facts of the case, and is acting upon such 
knowledge, then this campaign may be justified as the least 
eligible of two good measures which might have been deter- 
mined on. If, on the other hand, he is not thus informed, 
this campaign is one of the most presumptuous blunders 
of which we can form a conception. We record it as our 
deliberate judgment, that that famous march is a precedent 
which all future commanders should avoid. Success never 
changes a blunder into a precedent. 

What Sherman failed to do. 

One fact connected with this famous march appears to 
all Confederate generals and officers with whom we have 
conversed an inexplicable mystery. In the same light, 
we have been informed, has the matter ever stood in 
the regard of all well-informed generals in their army. 
Augusta, which lay but a few miles east of General 
Sherman's line of march, was, and was universally known 
to be, a place of more vital importance to the Confederacy 
than Atlanta, while Savannah was, at the time, the least 
important of the three, Augusta lying on the direct and 
main route between Virginia and the Carolinas, and the 
central and western States of the Confederacy, and being 
also the great central depot for cotton, provisions, and 
supplies for the Confederate armies east and west. No 

28 



434 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Other position was of such vital importance to the Con- 
federacy as Augusta, and its fall would have, of necessity, 
involved the speedy ruin of the cause of the Rebellion, 
inasmuch as their means of supply and of united action 
would have been cut off. The route through Augusta to 
General Sherman's objective point, Petersburg, was more 
direct, and from 150 to 200 miles shorter, than that through 
Savannah. By taking the former route, and advancing 
from Augusta through Columbia, he would not only have 
divided the Confederacy into two parts, but would have 
rendered their reunion impossible. He would, at the same 
time, have ensured the surrender of Lee, and the final fall 
of the Confederacy itself, some months earlier than they 
did occur. By passing Augusta, and moving round 
through Savannah, he permitted Johnston, with what 
remained of Hood's forces, to reinforce Hardee in front 
of our army, and to make dispositions which, but for an 
event hereafter to be designated, rendered the destruction 
of that army almost, or quite, inevitable. Besides, the 
capture of Augusta, which was then defended by less 
than 5,000 men, and the consequent hopeless prostration 
of the Confederacy, would have delayed the advance upon 
Savannah but a very few days, had such an advance been 
determined upon. The neglect to avail himself of this 
most propitious opportunity, involves, not only a palpable 
blunder, but a mystery which the present generation will 
probably be wholly unable to solve, whatever may be true 
of the disclosures of the future. 

Wka^ the Confederates suffered in regard to provisions and 
supplies from this march. 

The common Impression is that by this march the 
Confederacy was not only divided, but so Impoverished in 
provisions as to render a further prosecution of the war 
impossible. That the march did not divide the Con- 
federacy at all is rendered fully evident by the advance 
of Johnston with Hood's army through Augusta into 
Sherman's front in North Carolina. Indeed, until our 
army arrived at Columbia, railroad communications be- 
tween Virginia and Mississippi were not essentially dis- 
turbed. That what our army devoured, and carried off, 



Sherman's march through Georgia. 435 

during the march did not impoverish the Confederacy, is 
evident from the abundance which they found on the 
narrow strip of territory over which that army passed. 
If so much was found here, what must have remained on 
the other portions of the fertile territories of Georgia, 
Alabama, and Mississippi. It is undeniable that the 
damage done by this march was a matter of trifling 
concern to the Confederate cause. We must find the 
effects of this march in other directions than its immediate 
results. 

What material and provisions we gained^ and the Confederates 
lost, as the results 0/ this march. 

During the march itself, almost nothing but provisions 
were gathered up. In the capture of Savannah, however, 
the case was different. The results of the march are thus 
summed up by Mr. Greeley : — " We had lost in that march 
of 255 miles, which was substantially the conquest of 
Georgia" (a great mistake, as we have seen), *'six 
weeks' time and 567 men ; whereof 63 were killed, 245 
wounded, and 159 missing. To offset these, we had 
taken 1,328 prisoners, and 167 guns. Our ammunition 
expended was very inconsiderable; while our 65,000 men 
and 10,000 horses had lived generously off a State wherein 
our captives in thousands had died of virtual starvation 
and kindred agonies because (as was alleged) their captors 
were unable to subsist them. Aside from sheep, fowls, 
sweet potatoes, and rice, whereof they had found an 
abundance, 13,000 beeves, 160,000 bushels of corn, and 
over 5,000 tons of fodder, had been gathered from the 
country and issued to our men and animals; while 5,000 
horses and 4,000 mules had been pressed into the 
national service. Of cotton, 20,000 bales had been 
burned, while 25,000 were captured in Savannah." Two 
or three times that number, with untold amounts of pro- 
visions and supplies, would have been found in Augusta, 
had that place also been captured. 

The resistance Sherman received from the Coiifederate forces. 

While the neglect to capture Augusta must remain as 
the mystery of the campaign as conducted by Gerteral 



436 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Sherman, the absence of all real resistance to his march 
from Rome and Kingston to Savannah must remain a 
mystery equally inscrutable in the campaign as conducted 
by the Confederates. Hardee'scavalry under Wheeler, out- 
numbered, it is affirmed, those of Kilpatrick under Sher 
man. It is a well-ascertained fact that on his march 
Sherman was confronted by an army 30,000 strong, and 
that about 10,000 of these were cavalry, while his line of 
march compelled him to pass two important rivers, the 
Oconee and the Ogeechee, and on narrow roads, over 
many smaller streams, and through multitudinous marshes. 
Yet nowhere was there a serious resistance to his 
advance. At many points he might obviously have been 
compelled to concentrate his forces and fight battles at 
the greatest disadvantage. To all human appearance, his 
front of, for the most part, upwards of thirty miles in 
extent, might at different points have been successfully 
assaulted and broken through, and that with disastrous 
results to our army. Yet nothing of the kind was even 
attempted. Our men were permitted to forage and move 
at will, as if no hostile forces were near. When Fort 
McAlister was captured, and Hardee was summoned to sur- 
render Savannah, the only reply returned was that the 
surrender could not be properly made, because the city 
was not then sufficiently invested. While Sherman was 
on his way to Hilton Head to concert measures to cut off 
Hardee's retreat in the direction of Charleston, the latter 
evacuated Savannah, and left it, with all its forts, guns, 
munitions, and cotton, to be taken peaceable possession of 
by our forces. Great generalship did not always charac- 
terize the campaigns as conducted by the Confederate 
any more than by the Union commanders. But one con- 
ceivable explanation of the facts before us suggests itself 
to our mind, namely, after the defeat of Hood, Generals 
Lee and Johnston, divining Sherman's final purpose, 
developed the plan of concentrating in North Carolina 
Hood's and Hardee's forces, with all others that could be 
collected there, for the purpose of crushing Sherman, 
when he should have advanced to the vicinity of Golds- 
boro', and then confronting Grant with a combination ot 
force which he could not overcome. This hypothesis 



SHERMAN S MARCH THROUGH GEORGTA. 437 

renders all Hardee's conduct fully explicable, he having 
been instructed to risk nothing, and to do nothing but 
impede Sherman's advance, until the combination above 
suggested could be perfected. If this was the plan of the 
Confederate Generals, — and we have very good reasons for 
the statement that it was their real plan,^ — then, notwith- 
standing the final result, we must give them credit for 
strategic talent of a very high order. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SHERMAN'S MARCH FROM SA VANNAH, GEORGIA, 
TO GOLDSBORO\ NORTH CAROLINA; THE SUR- 
RENDER OF LEE AND JOHNSTON; AND THE 
CLOSE OF THE WAR. 

We now approach the closing- scenes of the eventful 
tragedy which has thus far occupied our attention, — scenes 
in respect to which our nation and the world have thus 
far, and in many important, respects, been most essentially 
misinformed, and in respect to which we will at this late 
period furnish the needed information. Contrary to all 
expectation, to the great surprise of our military authorities 
and the nation at large, the war, by the unexpected sur- 
render of Generals Lee and Johnston, and of the entire 
Confederate armies throughout the United States, came to 
a sudden and bloodless termination. The surrender of 
Generals Lee and Johnston, at the time when it occurred, 
was as unexpected to them and to the whole Confederacy as 
it was to the rest of the nation and the world. Two weeks 
prior to this surrender, these Generals, as we shall see, were 
in the most sanguine expectation of a great victory — a 
victory in which, and by which, Sherman would be crushed 
and captured, Grant be rendered powerless for future 
aggressive movements, and the whole aspect of the war 
fundamentally changed. 

I he real cause or causes which brougJit about tJiis unexpected 
cons ummat 10)1. 

What were the causes which so suddenly blighted these 
hopeful expectations, induced the unexpected surrender of 
the two central armies of the Confederacy, and brought the 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 439 

war to this sudden and bloodless termination ? The masterly 
strateg-y, wise dispositions, and timely and energ-etic action 
of General Grant, is the present response nearly or quite 
universally given to such a question. It is this impression 
which, in the general regard, has ^iven him a place among 
the great commanders of the world, has for two successive 
terms rendered him President of the United States, and, 
until quite recently, was likely to put him upon the course 
for the occupancy of that high office for a third term. Of 
the correctness of this impression, the nation and the 
world will, in the light of the facts which we are about to 
present, be able to form a correct judgment. What, then, 
was \}vi^ immediate cause which did occasion this unexpected 
consummation ? The Hon. Alexander \{. Stevens, ex- 
Vice-President of the Confederacy, assigns, as the definite 
and exclusive reason why Generals Lee and Johnston 
surrendered without fighting a battle, the fact that, at 
Goldsboro', Sherman was reinforced by the corps of 
Generals Schofield and Terry, the Union army thereby 
being rendered nearly or quite 100,000 strong, and thus 
becoming irresistible to any force which the Confederate 
Generals could bring into the field against us. Between 
such an army under Sherman, and a still greater one under 
Grant, these Generals saw themselves utterly powerless. 
For them to fight a battle under such circumstances, would 
be to throw away thousands of precious lives to no purpose. 
But one thing remained, unless they would involve them- 
selves in the crime of a murderous and unavailingf slaug-hter 
of their brave troops, and that was to surrender on the best 
terms that could be secured. Such is the definite cause 
assigned by Mr. Stevens for the unexpected and bloodless 
termination of the war, and nobody questions the accuracy 
of his information. In assigning his reasons for his approval 
of the surrender of Lee and Johnston without a battle, Mr. 
Stevens (vol. ii., p. 624 of his History) says: "I saw 
nothing to prevent Sherman himself from proceeding 
right on to Richmond and attacking Lee in the rear, to 
say nothing of any movements by Grant, who then had an 
army in front of not much, if any, under 200, 000 men . Lee's 
forces were not over one-fourth of that number. Sherman's 
army, when united with Schofield's and Terry's, which were 



440 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

joining him from Wilmington, North CaroUna, would be 
swelled to near 100,000. To meet these, the Confederates 
had in his front, nothing but the fragment of shattered 
armies amounting in all to not one-half the number of 
the Federals." We have good reason for affirming that 
Johnston's army was at this time greater than Mr. Stevens 
supposes, as that army was being rapidly reinforced, and 
had become so large, and brought into a state of such 
organization, that its commander had no doubt whatever of 
being fully able to defeat the army which Sherman brought 
with him from Savannah to North Carolina. The case 
was widely and appallingly different in Johnston's regard, 
after Sherman had been reinforced by Schofield and Terry. 
To fight Sherman then would imply infinite presumption. 
The fact is undeniable, that at the time when this reinforce- 
ment did arrive, the battle was being joined between the 
armies then confronting each other — that had this battle 
been fought, it would have been one of the bloodiest of the 
war — that, in the united judgment of two such Generals as 
Lee and Johnston, who perfectly understood the amount 
and character of the force in each army, the result of the 
conflict would have been the defeat and destruction of the 
Union army, and a sudden and total change in the status 
and prospects of the war itself. The fact is equally obvious 
and undeniable, also, that in consequence of the arrival of 
these reinforcements at that critical moment, Johnston 
retreated, and he and Lee afterwards surrendered, and the 
war was terminated without further bloodshed. 

Now, if we would know the real cause of this sudden 
and bloodless termination of the war, we must find the 
reasons and influences which brought Schofield and Terry 
to Goldsboro' at the critical moment when they appeared 
at that place. On the evening of January 14th, General 
Schofield, then at Clifton, on the Tennessee river, received 
by telegram an order to report, with his entire army, as 
soon as possible at Annapolis, Maryland. He was at the 
time at Clifton, under special orders from General Grant 
to transport that army by water, down the Tennessee, 
Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, to Eastport, Mississippi, and 
this for the purpose of another expedition up the Arkansas 
river for the subjugation of Texas ; and had all things in 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 44 1 

readiness to embark his army on that expedition the morn- 
ing- after the telegram referred to was received. The 
order conveyed in that telegram turned the army of 
Schofield from its intended destination, and brought it 
round, in connection with the corps of Terry, to Goldsboro', 
and by that means brought the war to its unexpected and 
bloodless termination. After the presentation of a few 
important facts and considerations, the causes which 
occasioned that order will be presented, and then all mis- 
apprehensions which have hitherto hung over the subject 
will be for ever removed. 

What General Grant did, and 7night and should have done, 
while he was " bottled and corked np " in the Peninsula 
before Petersburg and Richmond. 

Between the 12th and 15th of June, 1864, General 
Grant passed his army over James river, and commenced 
operations before Petersburg. After many vain efforts, in 
which he lost upwards of 30,000 men, he remained idle 
there until the opening of the next spring campaign. The 
only excuse or apology that we ever heard offered for this 
idleness is that the policy of Grant was to threaten Lee, 
and thus prevent his injuring Sherman by reinforcing 
Johnston. In other words, our great Commander-in- 
Chief kept for more than half a year 1,000,000 men in 
stagnant idleness, for no other reason than to enable an 
army 60,000 strong to make a safe march around a semi- 
circle of 1,000 miles in extent, and at the end of that 
march to come upon General Lee's rear. If this was the 
real motive for such inaction, then we affirm that our 
General ought to stand lower in national and world regard 
than any other General that ever commanded a great 
army. 

Let us for a few moments contemplate the facts of the 
case. During this year, aside from all the forces then 
in the field, the Government made successive calls for 
conscriptions amounting in all to the vast sum of 1,500,000 
men, and it is quite safe to conclude that from 600,000 to 
800,000 of these entered the army. In addition to the 
180,000 coloured troops enlisted during this and the year 
preceding, 100,000 volunteers, enlisted for a hundred days, 



442 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

were ''fully armed and equipped." Of these coloured troops 
and volunteers more than 100,000 joined the Army of the 
Potomac. All these — with, no doubt, a still larger number 
from the reg^ular army — were added to Grant's forces in 
Virginia. With all these immense forces under his imme- 
diate command, he lay in perfect torpor for more than 
six months, watching, in his wisdom, it is said. General 
Lee, to prevent his dividing his little army of 60,000 men, 
and sending reinforcements to Johnston, Hood, or Hardee, 
and waiting for Sherman to make with his 60,000 men his 
march of 1,000 miles, round from Rome and Kingston, in 
Georgia, through Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Columbia, 
and over Johnston's army into Lee's rear at Petersburg. 
We leave the facts, which cannot be denied, and their 
explanation, to speak for themselves. The only explana- 
tion which meets our honest judgment is the conclusion 
that our General remained thus idle because he did not 
know what to do. 

Let us now consider what might have been done, and 
what any General of even ordinary knowledge and capacity 
would have done, in General Grant's circumstances. We 
will suppose, to instance no other case, that he had moved 
an army 70,000 or 80,000 strong to Warrenton or Cul- 
pepper, had reinforced these with the 30,000 troops under 
Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and had given Sheridan 
the command of all these combined forces. All this could, 
undeniably, and at any time, have been done in two or 
three weeks. While Grant had concentrated all his army 
at Petersburg, and held his forces in readiness to move as 
soon as the proper moment should arrive, suppose that 
Sheridan, driving Early before him, or more probably 
having captured his little army, had moved through 
Gordonsville into Lee's rear, as Sherman was expected to 
do, after his march of 1,000 miles. The inevitable con- 
sequence would have been that General Lee would have 
surrendered, as he afterwards did, without a battle. 
Between the crushing forces of Sheridan and Grant he 
would never have assumed the criminal responsibility of 
sacrificing his soldiery to no purpose. Had he retreated 
into the Carolinas, he would in his retreat have been con- 
fronted with the superior forces sent round to Hilton 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 443 

Head, on the one hand, while he was relentlessly pursued 
by Grant on the other. The war would thus have had a 
bloodless termination quite six or eight months earlier 
than it did, and numberless precious lives, and not less 
than $500,000,000 of national debt, would have been 
saved to our country. To us, it appeared at the time, as 
is well know to our then students and friends with whom 
we communicated, an inexplicable enigma, that some 
such most obvious combination of the national forces 
in and about Virginia did not occur to our military 
authorities; and more than all, that they could by no 
possibility be persuaded to order such combinations when 
they were suggested by others. 

The plan of the campaign devised and ordered by General 
Grant while General ShevTnan lay at Savannah. 

Let us now turn our consideration to General Grant's 
plan of the campaign while General Sherman lay at 
Savannah, — the plan which was being carried into exe- 
cution at the time when the telegram referred to above 
reached General Schofield at Clifton. After the defeat 
and demoralization of Hood's army. General Grant 
ordered the following disposition of General Thomas's 
forces. The corps of Generals Schofield, Smith, and 
Wilson were ordered to move to Clifton on the Tennessee 
river, to be conveyed by water to Eastport, Mississippi, 
for a campaign in that direction, while General Wood's 
corps was ordered to Huntsville, Alabama, for a winter 
campaign in the latter State. While the forces first 
designated lay at Clifton for the purpose named, Scho- 
field received his telegram — the order which brought him 
and Terry to Goldsboro'. The first order which General 
Grant gave forth to Sherman, when the latter arrived at 
Savannah, was that he should move his army by water 
round to Petersburg, and reinforce ours there. This, 
then, was the original plan of our Commander-in-Chief — 
the movement of Thomas's army as stated, and a move- 
ment of the Army of the Potomac, reinforced by that of 
Sherman from Petersburg, — a campaign which, if carried 
out, would inevitably, and as Grant calculated at the time, 
have protracted the war far into the year 1866. By the 



444 ^'HE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

visit of Sherman to Petersburg, General Grant, after the 
most earnest entreaty, was induced so far to modify his 
original plan as to allow Sherman to make, as he had at 
first determined, his march through the Carolinas. In all 
other respects the original plan of the campaign remainec^ 
unchanged. 

The counter-plan of the Confederate commanders. 

After the final defeat of General Hood, it became per- 
fectly manifest to the Confederate Generals that all hope 
for their cause then depended upon the destruction of 
Sherman's army, and a subsequent union of their forces 
against Grant. At this time, however, Sherman was too 
far advanced upon his march to be injured through the 
forces of Hardee and Hood in the State of Georgia. 
Assuming that the ultimate plan of Sherman was to move 
through the Carolinas into Lee's rear at Petersburg, they 
determined to organize in North Carolina a new army 
under Johnston — an army consisting of Hardee's and what 
remained of Hood's forces, of all that Johnston would 
bring with him from the States of Mississippi, Alabama, 
and Georgia, and all that by any possibility could be 
drawn together from the Carolinas. This army, reinforced 
by General Lee so as to be rendered entirely superior to 
Sherman's, was to await his approach to North Carolina, 
and there, at a place which the Confederates should select, 
fall upon and crush him, and having captured his forces, 
combine with Lee against Grant. That this was the 
definite plan of the Confederate Generals is perfectly 
obvious from the facts before us. That it was their plan, 
we have also been assured by General Ripley, who joined 
Johnston with the forces which retreated from Charleston, 
and enjoyed his full confidence. It is perfectly obvious 
that had the campaigns as originally devised by the Con- 
federate Generals on the one hand, and by Generals Grant 
and Sherman on the other, been carried out, by far the 
most bloody battle of the war would have been fought in 
the vicinity of Goldsboro', and that with the almost certain 
defeat and ruin of our army. Johnston was there with 
an army reinforced by Lee, and thereby rendered superior 
to Sherman's in infantry, artillery, and cavalry; and the 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR 445 

plan was, as we have been positively assured, for Lee 
with his entire army to join Johnston, leaving Richmond 
to its fate, if that should be deemed necessary. Further- 
more, Johnston's army was perfectly fresh, fully organized, 
in the best spirits, and on ground well known to its com- 
mander ; while the army of Sherman was wearied, and not 
a little demoralized, by its long and marauding march, and 
was upon a field of which its commander was wholly igno- 
rant. It is perfectly obvious, also, that, in case of defeat, 
the utter ruin of Sherman's army was inevitable, because 
it would have been driven back into a region rendered by 
our advance devoid of the means of sustaining our army 
for a single week. The reader will perceive at once that 
the Confederate Generals had the best of reasons for the 
sanguine hopes which they entertained, until their expecta- 
tions were blasted by the union of Schofield and Terry 
with Sherman at Goldsboro'. Justice also compels us to 
affirm that, while the plan of Sherman and Grant was most 
obviously presumptuous, that of the Confederate com- 
manders was one of the most perfect known in history. 

The originating cause of those dispositions of the national forces 
which broke up the plans of both the Union and Confede- 
rate cominanders^ and brought the war to its unexpected and 
bloodless termination. 

The way is now prepared, and that fully, for a dis- 
closure of the real origin of those dispositions of the 
national forces,- — dispositions which so suddenly changed 
the course of events as they were progressing under the 
direction of the Union and Confederate commanders, and 
brought the war to its unlooked-for and bloodless termi- 
nation. We. shall disclose the facts as they actually 
occurred, although in so doing we may seem to be aiming 
at self-glorification. To all who would impute such a 
motive, our reply is, "Strike, but hear me." Truth has 
a right to be heard everywhere, — a right especially to 
supplant misleading error on the page of history. The 
following are the facts of the case under consideration. 
While the army of General Sherman was resting at 
Savannah, we carefully contemplated the situation, and felt 
appalled at the facts before us. The plan of Grant and 



446 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

Sherman, on the one hand, and of Lee and Johnston, on 
the other, were each perfectly obvious. Sherman was to 
move out from Savannah with the intent of pushing John- 
ston back upon Lee. Then Grant was to move out from 
Petersburg, and push Lee back upon Johnston. Thus, as 
it was anticipated, the two Confederate armies would be 
crushed between the two masses which should at the same 
time be precipitated upon them.. Such was the plan of 
our Generals. In accordance with the counter-plan of the 
Confederates, Lee, keeping sufficient forces to hold Grant 
in check, or moving with his entire army, if need be, was 
to reinforce Johnston until he should be far stronger than 
Sherman. When the latter should advance over the line 
of North Carolina, Johnston, with an overwhelming force, 
was to fall upon and annihilate him, and then unite with 
Lee against Grant. The plan of the Confederates we 
saw to be perfectly practicable, and of certain execution, 
should the movements contemplated by both parties be 
made, and be made as contemplated. The force under 
Sherman, as we know must have been the case, was well 
known to the Confederate commanders ; and it was perfectly 
practicable for them to concentrate in his front a force so 
far superior to his as to render his defeat and capture 
inevitable. Yet our commanders were manifestly blind to 
the catastrophe before them. We accordingly, to prevent 
such a disaster, wrote a letter to Mr. Sumner, who was at 
his place in Washington, a letter containing the following 
statements : — 

" You have now got our army into the worst condition 
possible. Never were we in such peril of a great national 
disaster as at this present time. Our army, as you per- 
ceive, is divided into three parts, and these parts located 
on the angles of a great triangle, as Thomas at Nashville, 
Sherman at Savannah, and Grant at Petersburg, with the 
enemy in the centre, and ready to concentrate with crush- 
ing force upon the portion of our army which shall make 
the next move, — and that movement will be made by 
Sherman He evidently is to move out from Savannah, 
capture Columbia, and then assail Johnston, with the 
intent of forcing him back upon Lee, and crushing them 
between our two armies. The counter-plan of the Con- 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 447 

federate commanders is to allow Sherman to move, with 
very little opposition, through Columbia into North 
Carolina; and then, by a union of the armies of Johnston 
and Lee, to precipitate, suddenly and unexpectedly to us, 
an overwhelming force upon our insulated army, crush 
and annihilate it, and then turn back upon Grant. Such, 
you may rest assured, is the catastrophe before us if 
Sherman shall make the movement now contemplated. 

" In existing circumstances there is one, and but one 
thing to be done. If that one thing shall be done, the 
war will be ended at once. If this one thing shall not be 
done, you may depend upon it that the greatest catas- 
trophe that has yet occurred since the war commenced is 
immediately before us, and this to be followed by a long and 
bloody campaign." 

What the movement hinted at was, we did not indicate 
at all, and that under the belief that it was best not to 
disclose this, unless it should be inquired for. There is 
one mistake in the extract above cited, the location of the 
army of General Thomas. Myself and the public were 
at the time ignorant of the fact that his army had moved 
from Nashville. 

Mr. Sumner did with the above letter as we supposed 
he would do. He took it directly to the President, and after 
a consultation with him and the Secretary of War, who 
had now come to respect our judgment, wrote back, under 
instruction, a letter from which we take the following 
extract, namely: " We wish to know immediately, here in 
Washington, what the movement is which, in your judg- 
ment, ought to be made. We think that General Sherman 
has under his command more troops that you suppose. 
His army is between 50,006 and 60,000 strong. Please 
answer without delay." 

, The following is an extract from our reply : — 

" General Sherman has the identical amount of force that 
I had supposed, as the basis of my calculations. But this 
force is by no means sufficient for the movement contem- 
plated, because Johnston, reinforced as he may and will be 
by Lee, will command an army more numerous than this. 
Our army, on an unknown field, — wearied, as it will be, by 
its long march, and not a little disorganized by the manner 



448 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

of that march, — will be in no condition to encounter an 
army superior in number, commanded by such a General 
as Johnston, and who is also perfectly acquainted with the 
country around him. Bear this in mind, that if Sherman 
shall make the movement under consideration, a great 
national disaster and a long and bloody campaign are 
before us. 

"The measure that should be adopted under such 
circumstances is the following. The defeat and rout of 
General Hood has rendered it unnecessary that anything 
should for the present be done by the army of General 
Thomas in that department. Leave him, then, on the 
defensive, with no forces greater than are indispensable for 
present security, and bring all the remainder around, and 
unite them with the army of Sherman, thus making him 
invincible and all-powerful against any amount of force 
that the enemy can bring- against him. With such forces 
under his command, let him come out, capture Columbia, 
and move upon Lee's rear, and the war is at an end at 
OP'^e, If this is not done, the events which L have fore- 
shadowed will inevitably occur. Now, Mr. Sumner, if you 
have any love to your country, go at once to the President, 
and say to him that this must be done. Press upon him 
also the consideration that there is no time to be lost." 

Such was the reply given to the request forwarded to us 
through Mr. Sumner. As soon as the reply was received, 
a consultation was had with the President, the Secretary 
of War, and how m.any others we were not specifically in- 
formed. As the result of that consultation, the resolution 
was adopted that the measure recommended should be 
carried out, and that General Grant should be directed to 
order the dispositions requisite to that end. That direction 
was complied with by the Commander-in-Chief, — the order 
directing General Schofield to report at Annapolis, Mary- 
land, instead of Eastport, Mississippi, being forwarded as 
above stated. After we became aware that our advice 
had been complied with, and that General Schofield was on 
his way to reinforce General Sherman, we wrote to Mr. 
Sumner a letter from which I take the following extract : 
" I am of course ignorant of the amount of force which 
is being brought round, and this is the only consideration 



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 449 

about which I feel any concern, being absolutely assured 
that if this force is adequate to the end intended, the war 
will be ended in a very few weeks." The reply to this 
letter, the last communication we ever received from that 
venerable patriot and statesman, contained this sentence : 
"We are very glad, on account of the confidence we have 
in your judgment, to have you speak thus encouragingly 
of the prospects." 

Results of the iieiu movements occasioned by this correspondence. 

The results of the movements occasioned by the above 
correspondence may be told in a few words. Sherman, as 
intended, moved out from Savannah, captured, and occa- 
sioned (by accident) the destruction by fire of Columbia, and 
advanced, almost without the show of resistance, into North 
Carolina as far as Goldsboro'. Schofield, on his arrival at 
Annapolis and Washington, was taken round by water 
to Wilmington, captured that city and its fortifications, and 
joining his forces with those of General Terry, who was 
holding Fort Fisher, moved up to Goldsboro', and there 
reinforced Sherman, rendering his army, as stated, nearly 
or quite 100,000 strong. Johnston, who was in the act of 
falling upon Sherman, and had captured two of his regi- 
ments when Schofield arrived, finding that by this arrival 
he (Johnston) had two armies to fight instead of one, and 
that he was utterly powerless in the presence of the over- 
whelming forces now combined against him, retreated with- 
out fighting a battle at all. General Lee now attempted 
to reinforce Johnston with the entire forces left under his 
(Lee's) command, and that in the vain hope of yet being 
able to crush Sherman, and then turn back upon Grant. 
In this attempt the Confederate commander was foiled by 
the timely advance of General Grant, on the one hand, 
and by the authorities at Richmond on the other. General 
Lee had ordered supplies from Danville, to meet him by 
cars at Amelia Court House. When he arrived with his 
army in a famishing condition at the place last designated, 
he found that the train had been ordered to Richmond to 
aid in conveying from thence the fugitives, and that, in 
obeying this order, the train had passed Amelia Court 
House without unloading. This calamity necessitated a 

2y 



450 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

halt of two full days to collect provisions, and enabled our 
advance, under Sheridan, to interpose between the two 
Confederate armies, and render their junction impossible. 
The Confederate commanders perceiving- clearly, such 
being the overpowering odds against them, that further 
resistance was vain, surrendered their respective armies, — 
Lee surrendering to Grant, and Johnston to Sherman ; 
the conditions granted by Shermaxi to Johnston being 
reversed by our supreme authorities at Washington. As 
a final consequence, the surrender of these two main armies 
was immediately followed by that of all the other Con- 
federate forces in all the States then in rebellion, and, as 
we affirmed it would be, provided the one movement re 
ferred to abcve was made, *' the war was ended at once.'* 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE STRATEGY WHICI 
BROUGHT THE WAR TO ITS UNEXPECTEL 
SUDDEN, AND BLOODLESS TERMINATION. 

The immediate results of the strategy which brought 
Schofield round from Clifton to Goldsboro', were the 
prevention of a great and bloody battle, then imminent, 
and the sudden and bloodless termination of the war, by 
the immediate surrender of all the Confederate armies, 
and the submission of the States in rebellion to the national 
Government. The results which would have arisen had 
this movement on the part of General Schofield not been 
made, are obvious. The great battle referred to would, in 
that case, have been fought, — a battle in which, including 
losses on both sides, there would undeniably have been a 
slaughter of from 30,000 to 50,000 brave men. Had 
Sherman been victorious, the war would have been 
brought to an immediate close, — a close, however, attended 
with this fearful sacrifice of human life. Had Sherman 
been defeated, as in our judgment he unquestionably 
would have been, a long and bloody campaign would have 
followed, with the war protracted into the year 1866, and 
the addition of from $300,000,000 to $500,000,000 to our 
present national debt. The lessons taught by the strategy 
which prevented such evils, and brought about such results, 
are too important to be forgotten by the nation. Among 
these lessons, we specify the following : 

Wisdom of the strategy urged upon the national authorities 
/ram the beginnifig of the war. 

We have, in the first place, an absolute verification of 
the wisdom of the strategy which we urged upon our naval 



452 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

and military authorities from the beginning to the close 
of the war. We contended and urged from the first, that 
the Confederate ports should be attacked by adequate 
forces on the land as well as on the water sides. The 
nation exhausted its naval resources, and spent untold 
millions of ti«isure, in blockading those ports, and assault- 
ing them exclusively on their water sides. The capture of 
Savannah by Sherman, of Wilmington by Schofield, and 
the abandonment of Charleston as soon as it was flanked 
by an adequate land force, demonstrate the practicability, 
as we maintained, of their early, easy, and cheap capture, 
had they been attacked on both sides instead of one and 
that their impregnable side. 

We contended and urged, also, that General Lee, for 
example, should be assaulted, not as he always was, — to 
wit, merely in front, and in positions where he was 
imprei^nably fortified, — that he should be assaulted by 
adequate forces, which were always at command, both in 
front and on his flank or rear. Our nation spent four long 
years in continuous fighting, sacrificing thereby more than 
a quarter of a million of our citizen soldiers in fruitless 
and bloody assaults upon that small Confederate army, 
and that because it was always assaulted merely in front, 
and generally when behind impregnable fortifications. As 
soon as that army was approached as we contended it ever 
should have been, — that is, by adequate forces both in front 
and rear, — it surrendered without fighting a battle. During 
all these long years of reckless slaughter, that army was, 
and that most obviously, approachable in this the only 
effective form, and might have been captured, and the war 
brought to a termination, with very little bloodshed. Such 
wisdom, however, had no place in the stolid brains of our 
Commanders-in-Chief. Suppose that General Grant had 
sent the 60,000 men whom he so stupidly sacrificed in the 
Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbour, down to 
General Butler, thus rendering the army of the latter quite 
80,000 strong ; that this army had been landed at Bermuda 
Hundred and then moved out upon Lee's communications 
south of James river; while Grant himself had moved 
directly upon the position of the Confederate army at Orange 
Court House. There is no person at all acquainted with the 



LESSOXS TAUGHT. 453 

history of military aft'airs who wili doubt for a moment that 
Lee's army, Richmond, Virginia, and the Carohnas, would 
have been ours one year sooner than they were, and that in 
gaining- all these ends we should not have lost 20,000 men, 
in the stead of the 150,000 which we did lose in Virginia 
during the year 1864. Had Sherman, with adequate forces, 
as he might have done, moved upon Johnston from Chatta- 
nooga and Decatur at the same time, instead of the 60,000 
which we did lose, we should not have lost 15,000 men in 
the conquest of all the Confederate States between the 
Savannah and Mississippi rivers. The fundamental dis- 
positions which occasioned the bloodless surrender of Lee 
and Johnston absolutely verify all these statements. 

From the commencement of the war onward, we con- 
tended that it was attended with a fearful sacrifice of 
human life, and a corresponding expenditure of the 
national treasury, — a sacrifice and expenditure for which 
no excuse or apology could be offered but the blind igno- 
rance and reckless obstinacy of our military authorities ; 
and that at any time, by an obviously wise combination of 
the national forces, the war could, in a very few months, 
be brought to an almost bloodless termination. We finally 
succeeded in securing the identical combinations which we 
had all along urged upon our military authorities, and to 
secure which was the specific and exclusive object of our 
visit to Washington in January 1863. The result is before 
the nation and the w^orld. Let it stand as a beacon ol 
admonition and warning against past errors, and as a light 
for present and future generations, should the ' eclipse 
of peace ever again shed disastrous twilight over our 
country. There never was an important Confederate army 
thr.t might not most readily have been placed between two 
of our armies, each of which was equal, or superior, to that 
of the enemy, just as th^ armies of Johnston and Lee were 
placed between those of Sherman and Grant, and so located 
that it could not escape the crushing folds in which it was 
involved. Any prudent General, when he finds him->elf 
thus involved, will surrender without the effusion of blood. 
We have often said, and now repeat before the world, that 
this war ought by no means to have continued one year 
af er October ist, 1861 ; that it ought not to have cost us 



454 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

over 50,000 lives, nor to have burdened the nation with a 
liCbt amounting to over ^500,000,000. We now, in verifica- 
tion of such statements, confidently present the dispositions 
by which the war was brought to a close. Precisely similar 
dispositions, as we have already demonstrated, might have 
been made relatively to every important army which the 
Confederates ever brought into the field, and this without 
compelling one army to march a thousand miles, in one, and 
another to be conveyed, by rail and water, a much greater 
distance, in another direction. 

False vieiLS of conducting the war. 

Another lesson, taught by the facts before us, demands 
very special attention. We refer to the idea which generally 
obtained in respect to the method by which the war was 
to be brought to a termination. When General Grant, for 
example, took supreme command, it wajs well known, and 
was everywhere spoken of to his great credit, that "he 
despised strategy," that he held to but one methcd, fall- 
ing directly upon the enemy v/herever he might be found, 
and by precipitating upon him an overwhelming force, 
crush him outright, and all this without regard to the 
sacrifice of life and limb which such a blind method might 
involve. Hence it was that, under the impression that 
while one Confederate was killed at the loss of three or 
more on our part, the war was being wisely conducted, 
and on account of the immense odds on our side, was sure 
to terminate in our favour, "Peg away" was the word 
sent down to Grant, when it was well known that, as a 
little blind giant with a great club, he was recklessly 
wasting our army " at the rate of 10,000 a day," and 
inflicting only small loss upon the enemy. We can, and 
the enemy cannot, continue the conflict for ever, it was 
thought, even at this difference of rate of loss. As 
no other method was thought of, the ocean-current of 
blood was permitted to roll on, and would have desolated 
the nation, had not wiser counsels finally obtained a hear- 
ing. Now no idea can be more false and perilous to the 
interests of a great nation than that under consideration. 
None but a great strategist should ever be placed over a 
great army. A General with " a baswood brain," and the 



LESSONS TAUGHT. 455 

Spirit of bull-dog fight in him, — such a commander, at the 
head of vast armies, will hardly fail to prove himself ** an 
abomination of desolation " to the armies he may com- 
mand, and to the nation who has stupidly put its destiny 
in his hands. A vast army blindly conducted is one of 
the most helpless and readily defeated bodies ever set in 
motion. Who can estimate the disastrous results which 
Grant's blind and reckless conduct of the war would have 
entailed upon our country had not that conduct been 
interrupted just at that eventful crisis of our history? 

Advice given to President Lincoln, January 1863. 

It was on account of the prevalence of this false idea, 
and in view of the disastrous consequences which had 
resulted, and were certain to continue to result, from the 
existing method of conducting the war, that in our visit to 
Washington, January 1863, we advised, and most earnestly 
urged, President Lincoln, in accordance with the example 
of Great Britain in view of the palpable failures of its 
various early expeditions in Spain and Portugal, to appoint 
a Military Commission, whose business it should be to 
inquire into the causes of past failures, to devise proper 
methods for the future, and, above all, to find a man who 
comprehended the causes referred to, and the true method 
for the future conduct of the war, — a man who fully under- 
stood the situation, and who could show how to put a stop 
to the reckless slaughter of our citizen soldiery, and how 
this desolating conflict might be brought to a speedy and 
comparatively bloodless termination. " Your generals," 
we remarked, " are untried men, and know little or nothing 
of the science of war, and especially about vast campaigns, 
and the movements of great armies. The first duty you 
owe to your country, as its Chief Magistrate, is to inquire, 
at least, for such a man ; and when he is found, if Provi- 
dence shall present one, place your armies under his 
control. The Military Commission in England found 
Wellington, secured his appointment to supreme com- 
mand, and thus ensured the ruin of the cause of France in 
the Peninsula. Your Commission may, and probably will, 
furnish you a man of similar capacities. In such a case, 
this war will be brought to a speedy termination, and that 

/ 
/ \ ; 



456 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

with very little further effusion of blood." Such advice 
failed with our Executive and his advisers, and hence the 
desolation continued, until the cry of our country was like 
the wail of Egypt, because " there was not a house where 
there was not one dead." Let such facts stand as a 
beacon of warning and admonition to future generations. 

Concluding Reflections. 

It does not comport with the plan of this treatise to 
trace the progress of events which followed the surrender 
of the Confederate armies, and the dissolution of the Con- 
federacy itself, nor to detail that tragic event which deprived 
us of our venerated President, just after, by an overwhelm- 
ing majority, he was elected and inaugurated a second 
time to the office of President of these United States. 
The end I have aimed at will have been attained, provided 
the war itself, and those who, for the most part, miscon- 
ducted it, shall be understood, and the people who, not- 
withstanding such unheard-of misconduct, so "patiently 
endured to the end," shall better understand themselves, 
and better comprehend their duty to themselves and to 
their country. 

Taking all the facts of that war into account, two 
deductions are undeniable, namely, that no people ever 
won for themselves higher claims for real self-respect, and 
for the deep esteem of the world, than did the people of 
these United States during that terrible conflict, and that 
no people can have less occasion to glorify, and raise to 
the highest offices in their gift, the chief leaders of our 
great armies, and the noisy politicians who controlled our 
national affairs during that memorable period. Think of 
a people who uncomplainingly furnished for that war up- 
wards of 2,600,000 men, enduring, in a single year, a 
conscription of 1,500,000 of its citizens! Think of the 
uncomplaining patience with which that people endured, 
not only such calls for the army, but the weight of taxa- 
tion suddenly heaped up, " Pelion upon Parnassus," upon 
their shoulders, and the rivers of blood perpetually flowing 
out from the hearts of their husbands, fathers, sons, and 
brothers ! Think of the sacrifices, voLimtarily endured, 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 457 

during that war, by families at home, while their fathers, 
husbands, sons, and brothers were in the field marching-, 
fighting, or suffering and dying in hospitals from wounds 
or sickness, our entire families all unitedly labouring to 
provide comforts for the sufferers in the army! Then 
think of the unselfishness with which that people, on the 
return of peace, themselves having endured all the hard- 
ships of the war, and receiving none of its emoluments, 
honoured with their highest civil gifts the men who had 
led — may I not more properly say misled, and recklessly 
slaughtered our soldiers ? Our people, being an unmilitary 
people, naturally fell into the illusion that the individuals 
who happened to be at the head of our armies at the time 
when the war terminated, must have brought to us the 
blessings of peace, by their superlative military wisdom, 
and hence deserved the highest civil emoluments in the 
gift of a free people. 

The most important fact to the honour of this people 
yet remains to be adduced. I refer to the sentiments of 
those who suffered most, in respect to the sacrifices at which 
peace and national unity were procured, on the one hand, 
and in regard to the people of the Confederate States, on 
the other, I never yet met with an individual who had 
lost a father, husband, son, or brother, in that war, who 
expressed regret that the sacrifices by which those blessings 
were procured were made, or a sentiment of bitterness 
towards the people who, by the rebellion, had occasioned 
those sacrifices. Much has been said and done since the 
war to perpetuate in the Northern heart the sentiment of 
bitterness towards the people of the former Confederacy. 
An appeal to that sentiment was one of the leading influ- 
ences employed in the last Presidential election. Poli- 
ticians wielded that weapon — politicians who had enriched 
themselves by the war, and sought by such savage 
means to secure for themselves the emoluments of peace. 
In one speech, for example, this utterance was found : 
" This we hear said, — * Let us shake hands over the 
bloody chasm made by the war,' I protest against such 
a sentiment." The author of that utterance had, it was 
said, made an immense fortune out of the war, and was 
then ''coveting earnestly "^a residence o^" at least four 



458 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

years' continuance in the White House. One of the 
*' pictorials " which was during that canvass spread all over 
the Northern States, was of this kind. In the centre was 
represented the field of Andersonville, with its real and 
imagined horrors. On one side of the field stood Horace 
Greeley, and on the other Jefferson Davis. The former, 
extending his hand to the latter, says, '* Let us shake 
hands over the bloody chasm made by this war." It is 
with much gratification that I am able to record the fact 
that the author of that representation was not an American, 
and knew not the heart of an American. Permit me here 
to allude to my own case, and I claim no special merit in 
what I am about to utter. In that war, as I have stated, 
my only son, after painfully suffering for more than six 
months, died of injuries received in the battle of Frede- 
ricksburg. The wife of my youth, the mother of all my 
children, from no other cause than over-fatigue around 
that bed of pain and death, returned home with me to die. 
A blooming daughter, on account of the shock received by 
the death of her brother and mother, drooped in spirit, and, 
despite all our efforts to save her, " dropped into the lap 
of God." Another daughter, through excessive labours 
in the service of the Sanitary Commission, brought on a 
lingering disease of which she afterwards died. In the 
Army of the Potomac, a noble youth, the only living child 
of my only own sister, lost his life, and so did one of two 
sons of the only sister of my first wife. Such were my 
bereavements from this war. And here let me say, that 
were the remains of all these lying side by side, in the 
centre of the field referred to, standing at one end of that 
line, that would be a sacred spot to me, the spot which, of 
all others, I would select, from whence to extend my hand 
over my dead, and grasp that of any individual, whatever 
the past may have been, who now bears in his bosom a 
genuine American heart. And this I well know to be the 
common sentiment of my fellow-citizens who have been 
bereaved, as I have been, by this war. For one, I would 
as soon give my vote for Benedict Arnold, were he now 
living, as I would for any man who shall hereafter attempt 
by means of these bloody and vengeful remembrances to 
influence our elections. 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 459 

Sucli are some of the reasons which the facts of this 
war present to the people of this nation for self-respect, 
and for the high regard of the world. How far they find 
reasons from such facts, to seek out, or to have sought out, 
among the leaders of our great armies, the past or the 
future rulers of this great Republic, may be gathered from 
the preceding pages of this history. I rejoice in being 
able to record the fact that the appalling evils which have 
arisen from the direction which "hero-worship" took after 
the close of the war, begin to be appreciated. Years 
ago, after we had, as the then avowed choice of two evils, 
helped by our influence and vote to elevate the present 
Chief Magistrate to the highest office in the gift of a free 
people, and after the results of that election began to 
appear, we wrote a letter to Mr. Sumner, containing these 
statements, namely : " The national mind is being dwarfed 
by the worship of small men. We can have no reasonable 
hope that our countrymen will become, and be known to 
the world as, " a wise and understanding people," and as 
morally virtuous as they are wise, while national thought 
and regard revolve around small specimens of human nature 
— small minds especially in whose character corruption is 
added to littleness. As events are progressing, after the 
few relics of the past shall have disappeared, relics which 
now stand as vanishing towers amid the desert of true 
greatness around them, real wisdom will have no place in 
our Cabinets, and little but the babble of small voices will 
be heard in our halls of legislation. Under such circum- 
stances, our mothers, instead of giving birth to " pillars of 
state," will give us a posterity " after the image and like- 
ness " of what passes before their minds as the highest 
forms of true wisdom and greatness. What can be done 
to give back to our nation the real idea of what greatness 
and excellence are? The nation elected our Chief 
Magistrate to his high office under the illusion that he 
was not only our Washington, but " our Csesar come 
again." Hence all the offensive protuberances which 
have appeared upon his character and administration, 
seen as all have been through the imagined halo of mili- 
tary renown and national deliverances, have appeared as 
superlative excellences, or, at the worst, as mere specks on 



460 THE AMERICAN REBELLION. 

the face of " the excess of glory." Revivals of reliq-ion 
which prevailed, many years ago, in the States of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, were attended with peculiar forms of 
physical convulsions called "the jerks." A certain old 
lady denounced the jerks, in all their forms, as from the 
devil. Her standing argument for her belief was the fact 

that her favourite minister, Dr. , never had the jerks ; 

and if they were from heaven, such a godly man as he 

would certainly have them. At length Dr. had the 

jerks, and his were, in every respect, like other people's. 
"What do you think now, madam ? " asked a neighbour. 

" Dr. 'has the jerks." " Well," replied the prudent 

matron, " I like such jerks as Dr. has. They are 

from God. But common jerks I don't believe in at all. 
They are all from the devil." " How can wisdom enter 
into the heart and knowledge be pleasant unto the soul " 
of such a mind as that? Just as readily as " wisdom and 
knowledge can become the stability of our times," as long 
as such jerks as are continually appearing in the most con- 
spicuous character that lifts its form before the national 
mind, are held up before the rising generation as forms 
of beauty, grace, and perfection. Take a single example 
in illustration of what has appeared generally among 
the eulogists of this individual. In a communication 
addressed to the President, one of his leading magnifiers, 
Mr. Welsh of Philadelphia, says : " Every suggestion I 
ever made to you was promptly responded to, save only 
the investigation of frauds allowed by your appointees." 
Here is an admitted crime of the most atrocious character. 
Every wise and righteous ruler holds, of all others, his own 
appointees to the strictest account. How does this mon- 
strosity appear when viewed as an undeniable characteristic 
of the administration of our President? "Even this 
lamentable trait, I believe," adds the blind eulogiser, 
" springs from a distorted virtue." Yes, Mr. Welsh, ct id 
omne gams, " you like such jerks as your President has." 
They cannot, in your regard, be anything worse or anything 
else than "distorted virtues." "Common jerks, ' the same 
as those appearing in any other individual, "you don't like 
at all. They are all from the devil." My countrymen ! has 
not this debasing folly gone far enough ? Does not sell- 



COXCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 46 1 

respect, and a regard for the best interests of posterity, 
require of us that henceforth character and deeds, as they 
lift their forms before us, shall be seen and appreciated as 
they are in themselves ; that real excellences, wherever, 
and in whomsoever, they appear, shall receive our high 
approval, while deformities and corruptions shall bear 
their real names ? Bear this in mind, that in present and 
future elections the main issue to be settled is, and will be, 
not whether this or that party shall have the majority, but 
whether stupidity and corruption, or wisdom and integrity, 
shall control our state and national legislation. There are 
in all the parties which divide our nation men of wisdom 
and integrity in sufficient numbers to fill all the offices in 
your gift. In the hands of such men, to whatever party 
they may happen to belong, our country's honour and 
interests are safe. When any party asks for your suf- 
frages, look directly at their candidates. Ask yourselves 
the question whether they are men whom you do and 
ought to esteem for their wisdom and integrity, and 
whether you can point them out to your children as " pillars 
of state." When such men are presented, honour them 
with your votes. If, on the other hand, you are asked to 
"say to the bramble, Rule thou over us," repudiate their 
candidate as an insult to your knowledge, manhood, and 
patriotism. 



THE END. 



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